AMERICA ONE - NextGen (Book 5) Page 19

  “These are all the chests of the personal belongings of all our tribal ancestors who ever lived in this crater,” he said over the intercom. “I believe about 1,500 years, six generations of Matts. Everybody who lived in the crater before space flight, and all my ancestors. I knew they would be down here, but Ryan, the people’s chests should still be in their rooms for when they awoke. We can tell the number of people sleeping by the chests in the rooms. VIN, Jonesy, can you please help me with my father’s case? Then all the ‘Ruler’ and ‘Inventor’ chests should hold all the plans and designs ever made by each inventor, and we should load them inside my craft immediately.”

  Everybody just looked at Commander Joot speechless. This was a far bigger find than Indiana Jones had ever uncovered. It took the crew several moments to just collect themselves.

  “Commander, what do we do with all these boxes? You said that their owners are long deceased,” asked Ryan.

  “I assume take them with us,” Commander Joot replied.

  “We can’t do that,” replied Ryan. “All these chests must be thousands of tons of gold. We could never lift all this weight up into space.”

  “Then to me, and the living Matts, only their own chests and the more senior chests are of any importance. The others we could just leave here,” replied the commander.

  “Doctors, could you search for the gold boxes in the rooms on that side,” ordered Ryan. “Igor, you and I will search the other side. Mr. Noble, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Saunders, can you try and carry Commander Joot’s gold box up to the surface, then between you, see if you can carry one or two of the Inventors cases up. As soon as the four of us have checked the rooms, we are all out of here to recharge our suits. This stuff isn’t going anywhere.”

  The boxes were heavy. The Ruler case belonging to the commander’s father took all four men to heft it up the three flights of stairs to the surface.

  Ranting, and their suits working hard to keep them cool, they left it in the hot sun and returned to the lower level. Walking back down was certainly easier than carrying that box the other way. The others were waiting for them.

  “Only thirty chests in eight rooms. The other rooms are all empty and look like the level above. All clean and like hotel rooms, metal beds and cupboards ready for occupancy. The numbers don’t tally. Something is not right. We checked them all,” said Ryan. “Two of us can lift the smaller Inventor cases, I’m sure. Can we get four to the surface?”

  All eight astronauts were now acclimatized to the strong gravitational pull, and still with much force it took them ten minutes to get four of the cases to the surface. It was certainly hard work. VIN reckoned that the largest chest must have weighed well over 200 pounds, and the smaller ones about 150. One was too heavy even for his strong metal legs to cart it up by himself. Part of his body was still human.

  Once they had the boxes in the sun, Ryan asked Joot to seal the cavern. The temperature outside their suits was over a hundred degrees, and the air would have been sucked into the lower level within seconds, or minutes. Now they had to get the chests out of the hole.

  That part was easy. VIN had limited experience to drive one of the Caterpillars, and once he was out of his suit he asked Jonesy to direct him. Slowly, he maneuvered the beast down the same slope Bob and Jonesy’s father had used hundreds of times.

  “Better you than me, partner,” shouted Jonesy from in front of the earthmover. It was the usual yellow color, and VIN noticed, had little to no diesel in the tank. “I can fly and drive most things, but the Air Force didn’t teach me to fly one of these ugly machines,” continued Jonesy. Maggie and Jamie Saunders laughed, standing on the ladders on each side of the cab and enjoying a free ride.

  “Well, they taught your dad,” VIN shouted back. “Even the Marines gave me basic training on this 930G: two hours.”

  “Well, we were busy flying bigger things,” retorted Jonesy.

  “Funny,” laughed VIN, concentrating on reaching the bottom without careening over the side. “Funny, partner, Colonel Bob Mathews can drive one. It seems you fancy generals seem only fit to fly the fancy machines; you know, the ones with wings. Once again it shows how you high-ranking snobs leave all the hard work to the rank and file.”

  “General Saunders and I might decide to begin court-martial proceedings against you, Lieutenant, for disrespect to superior officers,” replied Jonesy, winking at Allen walking next to him.

  “Could be a little difficult, darling; you are retired,” countered Maggie.

  “Generals, kiss my butt,” laughed Jamie. “You guys haven’t been any rank for over a decade now. It would be fun to watch VIN beat the crap out of both of you and I’m sure Maggie and I would be happy to lay bets and to edge our former Marine hero on, you two old two die-hards!”

  Through much jostling and dirty jokes Commander Joot would not have understood, the group of former military personnel managed to get down to the lower surface. Here they grunted and groaned like very unfit soldiers, lifted the five hot gold cases into the front loader, and again ranted and raved at each other all the way back to the cooler shade.

  The technicians found the last diesel drum, about half full with 20 or so gallons. Not enough for more than a couple of runs. That made Ryan check the supply depot list and saw they had eight 44-gallon drums of diesel in the stocks down on the open desert. Bob Mathews was still in Tel Aviv awaiting orders, and Ryan sent him a message to catch a ride back to the supply depot with the giant helicopter, which was to bring in another earthmover to clean up a new dirt runway area for the Dead Chicken. The helicopter was scheduled to arrive the next morning.

  The new operation would take a couple of days to ready a new runway. The helicopter would need to bring in a roller to harden the ground, and he needed Bob and Jonesy to lift supplies up into the crater.

  Fortunately the massive Russian lift helicopter was even too complicated for Bob to fly, so everything on loan in the crater would have to be flown out by this one helicopter once the hole was filled in, and just before the entire operation closed down. Ryan certainly didn’t want anybody outside his crew to know what, where, and how deep they had dug.

  Ryan already had been informed by Commander Joot that only a Matt could mentally open any of the cavern doors. There was no other key. Sure, someone could dig down and burn through a foot or so of pure titanium, but Ryan just hoped that like underneath the Nevada base, here with the depth of the sand nobody would bother looking underground.

  Nobody outside the America One crew knew why Ryan’s crew had the earthmovers in the crater, or why he was in the crater at all, except maybe for defense and to dig in, readying for the expected attack. The America One crew knew that the Israelis, then the Americans, Chinese, Russians and even the Libyans could come sniffing as soon as they left orbit.

  He and Igor figured out that one shield with an explosive destruction device would remain at the only door opening to the first level. The vacuum inside the shield, and a large exploding device, would certainly deter anybody from going further. Also, with no current manned space programs, spacesuits were getting pretty rare on Earth.

  There was no other way any of the team could think to stop the people on Earth acquiring any of the remains from inside the cavern.

  Chapter 12

  The Last of the Matts

  Eleven hours later the two doctors, VIN and the two Matts headed back down to the third level after the Caterpillar, driven by the astronauts, carried all the medical equipment down the slope. There were thirty minutes to go when they reached the third level, which now had good breathable air. All wearing suits again, they set up the equipment as they had done on the previous occasions and waited for the cabinets to pop open.

  Only the eleven which had blue handles popped open several minutes later, and the crew were surprised to find only small children in all eleven cabinets.

  “These must be your tribe’s next generation. We call ours the NextGen,” said Ryan to the Matts as the thirty awake
ning children were lifted out one by one and rolled shivering into blankets. The temperature in the cavern was 75 degrees, heated by the warm desert air, and it wasn’t long before the children warmed up with the IVs of food and liquids pumped into them. Once the children were comfortable, the crew began helping each other off with their spacesuits. The suits had certainly scared the frightened children, even though the two Matts had telepathically consoled them, and finally seeing Elder Roo’s and Commander Joot’s faces eased their concerns.

  The children were all less than three feet tall, and all wearing the usual blue suits, and the two Matts did a roll call. “Twenty boys between eight and eighteen years old. Ten girls, ages six to fourteen years old,” reported Elder Roo, once they had completed their tallying of the children.

  “Where are their parents?” Ryan asked in Matt, once he had his helmet off to Commander Joot verbally, and again scared the kids. They looked at the tall white-faced doctors, and the man speaking their language, and their faces paled.

  “It seems the rest of the tribe, about 150 adults and 250 children, did not have any large blue suits. Any other suits had been taken up with the last spacecraft, and Inventor Gong, the last Inventor, had left the tribe with the Ruler. I don’t see how that would have mattered, but maybe they didn’t know that the blue suit didn’t matter in the sleep chambers. These Matts have never been to space. The Ruler and the last Inventor were long gone; a Commander Fos was in charge and he gave the orders for the children best fitting into the remaining suits to be placed into the sleep chambers. The eldest boy told me that before they went to sleep, all the history records were placed into the sleep chambers, as well as all the tribal records, and that Commander Fos would make a log of their final days for the Ruler to collect when he returned. The commander told the boy that the chambers with the written history would be sealed inside the left-hand wall a few days before the end of their time, or if the tribe decided to head south.”

  “That must be the two red handles I found,” added Igor.

  With the two doctors checking the children, each with a Matt by their side, Igor, Ryan, Jonesy and Allen Saunders, who had driven the earthmover down and carried in the vital medical equipment, pulled the red-handled units open. Inside they found a dozen bound papyrus leaves filled with the Matt writing in each cabinet. There were packets of seeds, plants, and papyrus bound food, and open and still-cold jars of water for the awakening children in the other red-handled cabinets.

  Ryan knew that what he really wanted was hopefully in the Inventor’s chests. Ryan wanted the technology to make the shields, and Cold Fusion, and maybe a science or two that was different from Earth’s. He also realized that Commander Joot had to get all these new Matts and the most important chests up in America One before any more trouble peeked its lousy head from over the horizon. It was time for the little Matts to leave.

  Because there were not enough spacesuits for the departing passengers, SB-III’s crew compartment would shuttle the Matts up. The docking hatch on the shuttle could get the children into America One without suits. Commander Joot’s craft couldn’t, as it didn’t have a docking port.

  “Mr. Saunders, Mr. Jones, please could you head up and find out if SB-III is ready for launch. Mr. Jones, I still need you and Commander Joot to fly the Matt craft out of here, and I don’t think SB-III needs to return here to the desert again. Mr. Saunders, you will fly SB-III with your wife, and take these children, as well as all the larger gold chests, up to the mother ship. I still need to check out the power source down here with the commander. Elder Roo, you and the two doctors will go up with the shuttle. It’s time to finish up in here and head for Australia.

  Maggie Jones was qualified to fly Chinooks, her husband not, and she headed out the next morning alone to meet Bob Mathews and the arriving lift helicopter once Bob called in their arrival. The flight was short, the destination easy to locate and a Chinook easily flyable by one competent pilot.

  A second smaller helicopter from Israel was also on its way. It had a desert-tracked forklift underneath it, as Ryan had ordered, and the stores needed were to be forklifted into the Chinook, while 15 miles away and in the crater, SB-III’s aft cargo hold was to be filled with gold.

  The shuttle with its blue shield would be launched under the cover of darkness later that night, and Allen and Jamie would be the first astronauts to take off into orbit inside the blue shield, much to Jonesy’s disappointment.

  The shuttle had been ready the evening earlier, but the doctors suggested that the children be fed and monitored for at least 24 hours before flight. It would give them time to get all 30 of the larger gold chests and the 30 smaller chests belonging to the children to be loaded into the aft cargo hold, and the one-day extension turned out to be perfect.

  Over a hot day’s work, the Caterpillar in the crater managed two trips in and out of the hole and carried as many of the gold boxes as could be placed in its front bucket, and everywhere else a chest could be stashed on the yellow monsters, before it ran out of diesel a few yards from reaching the lower level for the third time. The second Caterpillar Bob Mathews had driven to dig the hole didn’t have enough for one trip, but they tried it anyway and got down, loaded and back up to the surface before its engine coughed and died.

  That helped haul up 15 chests, and for the rest of the day, the sweating crewmembers, Jonesy, Ryan and VIN each carried up the smaller children’s chests one at a time. Weighing 45 pounds, the men worked hard for six trips hauling up the remaining 18 smaller chests. Not only did they have to carry them out of the hole, the technicians with little to do for a few hours carried them up the stairs one by one inside the cavern before the same team had to head back up to the shuttle to begin hoisting the chests into the cargo hold one by one.

  The weight of gold they could fit in was certainly a lot, just over a ton, and they still had twenty of the smaller chests remaining. These were loaded into Commander Joot’s spaceship for delivery.

  Allen Saunders readied for flight as Bob Mathews arrived with Maggie, and flying in a load of diesel and supplies, the Chinook landed as the sun set. Bob and Maggie gave Ryan the list of supplies they had loaded into the chopper, and once night closed in, Allen launched SB-III.

  As expected, the shuttle’s worried pilot Jonesy was with his wife and Bob in the command tent drinking a cold beer, ready to help Allen fly his baby.

  “Shield fully extended, thrusters on warm up,” said Jamie over the radio.

  “Warm her engines up to 1,500 degrees,” said Jonesy.

  “SB-III to Chief Astronaut Jones. For once in her life this shuttle will be flown correctly,” joked Allen Saunders. “Suggest you give aid when asked for, General,”

  “Roger that,” replied Igor. “I’ll give him another cold beer, or get him to haul the rest of those chests up if he doesn’t shut up, over.”

  “You da man, Igor,” added Jamie. “Maggie, sort out that husband of yours. Temperatures at 1,500 degrees, main thrusters increasing to 30 percent…40….50….. 60…. 65 percent, lifting off effortlessly with a full load and heading vertical.”

  Jonesy was handed another beer, a warm one just flown in, and that shut him up.

  “Passing through 10,000 feet and looking good. You have just disappeared from our tracking devices,” said Igor into the mike.

  “Roger, copy that, we have disappeared from all radar systems above and below us. We are on our own,” replied Allen.

  “Thrusters increasing to 70 percent, nose coming up three degrees,” added Jamie.

  “Jonesy I’m taking her up like an F-16 on heat as we discussed,” continued Allen. “The quicker we get out of the atmosphere the more fuel we save. The ride is approaching 30 degrees above horizontal, still zero Gees on our bodies. Jamie, give us 80 percent thrust. Let’s burn, baby.”

  “An F-16 on heat? Did I miss this flight briefing, Mr. Jones?” Ryan asked his chief astronaut.

  “Ryan, the shield hasn’t let us down up to now,” remarked
Jonesy, looking at his lousy-tasting warm beer intently. “We need to reach 24,000 miles an hour to exit. Since we don’t use those backbreaking hydrogen pulse engines anymore, we might as well shoot out of Earth’s atmosphere like an F-16 on heat; afterburner, you know. And both Allen and I am sure that with the shield, there will be no drag on their bodies, and with a faster exit the shuttle will save fuel. A lot of fuel. Remember SB-III has only 50 percent of her normal launch fuel load.”

  “Heading through 90,000 feet,” said Jamie. “Still on manual flight controls, changing to computer controlled flight now. Perfect trajectory, thrusters on 85 percent, heading through Mach 8. Shield seems okay out there, as much as we can see from the cockpit. Increasing thrust to 90 percent. Oops! The computer has frozen thrust at maximum 88 percent, as I expected, cruising through 105,000 feet, Mach 12, no pressure on the body at all. Allen, put on some music. We might as well dance, or go out for dinner. This is the easiest launch we have ever done. Passing through 159,000 feet, Mach 18, 88 percent thrust, 41 percent fuel remaining, everything looking good, over.”

  “Well they are certainly on afterburner,” said Igor to Ryan. “They are 50,000 feet higher than normal, twice as fast, and fuel usage is only 3 percent above expectations.”

  “I should be enjoying myself up there, not that old excuse for a general,” muttered Jonesy, trying to figure out whether actually flying up there was better than sitting in the peaceful warm desert enjoying a lousy lukewarm beer.

  SB-III went into orbit with the last of the Matts and all the secret information of theirs in half the time it took a normal launch without the shield. Once in orbit, SB-III had saved 15 percent of the expected fuel. Ryan now understood how the Matts did it on 500 gallons of excellent quality alcohol. He also knew that nobody had followed the launch on radar; the new Israeli crew wouldn’t have seen the burning thrusters through the shield if they were still at the supply area, a 15 mile distance, there was absolutely no noise, and he had all the important scientific information out of harm’s way.