The Master Command Flight Deck-Day 213 into the mission

Lockheed Ground Control had modified the mission parameters for the space end of the tether for the space elevator at day 103 into the mission. All of the mission astrophysicists and planetary scientists agreed that new data that showed that one of the two Martian moons, Phobos, orbited just 5,680 km (3,530 mi) from the Martian surface. This is closer than any other planetary moon in the Solar System. The problem, as Lockheed saw it, is that the orbit of Phobos is slowly decaying and is only 1,340 km from the Martian atmosphere. Now here is where it starts to get dicey. One group of Lockheed people think that the moon will break up before it enters the atmosphere and that Phobos will become a ring around Mars ending up looking like a mini-Saturn. Another group thinks there is a possibility that the moon will break up into large chunks before it enters the atmosphere, which would create an asteroid storm, threatening the colony and the mining operations.

The plan is to insert the ship into a stable Mars low orbit so we can start to break up the elements of the ship and then detach them for their intended purposes. The Mars lander will detach with its 4 man crew with two large landing modules full of industrial manufacturing components. We will then detach 4 Mark 12 Fusion Reactors in a 3rd module that will touch down some 300 km easterly from Tharsis. It was a long ways from the Valles Marineris, the deepest dry canyon system in the known universe. The Mariana Trench in the western pacific on Earth was technically a little deeper, but it was wet-real wet! The Valley of the Mariner was one deep assed hole that Earth’s Mt. Everest could easily fit inside. If the worst case scenario happened, the reactors would be unrecoverable! There was little margin for error. The Colony needs these reactors in order to stay viable! It was determined that only Lieutenant Cassandra Mackleroy had the requisite skills to make the drop with the precision to avoid absolute catastrophe.

Next we temporarily detach both asteroid mining operations to Phobos. 4 Lockheed mini-fusion reactors will be attached that will power Ion drive thrusters to steer Phobos into an areostationary orbit directly above the SAGON dome in the middle of the Tharsis colony. Construction of the upper elements of the space elevator will then begin. When that portion is complete, the first intertwined Carbon Nano-Tube will be lowered to the Sagan Dome to mate with another one; then that unit will be hauled up and the process will be repeated until the full Carbon Nano-Tube Track can be lifted up from the surface. If everything goes to plan, including contingencies, the Space Elevator should be operational in 180 Martian days.

“We are on-course to be inserted into Mars Low Orbit, Commander; telemetry is nominal.” Cassandra told me and then added, “T-18 hrs-53 minutes to maneuvering thruster burn to put us into the same elliptical orbit as Phobos.” “Very Well, Lieutenant. Carry on!” I said and then raised the Mars decent team on the radio, “Mars Decent Team…this is Flight Deck Actual…over.” A slightly accented female voice transmitted back, “Ensign Tawakoni here Commander, Lieutenant Vukovich is supervising the pre-deployment checklist.” Very Well, Ensign, please have the good Lieutenant check in with me at his earliest convenience, Flight Deck out.” I said. After checking in with the 2 asteroid mining teams and approving of their progress, I stretched my arms and legs even as I was strapped into my Command chair. My last exercise period left me sore; I had perhaps over trained, using another hour than usual.

“If I may be so bold, my Master and Commander, I think that you should get a few hours of rest before we make our final approach”, Cassandra suggested and I knew that she was right, but I asked her, “How is your charge status, my lovely Martian beauty?” My use of the familiar, after 2 days of constant military like precision, caused her to radiate her 1,000 candlepower smile at me, as she vamped, “Unless I am strapped to you as you are using me as your personal sex toy, I use far less energy in this weightless environment than I did back home.” “Now that’s just sass!” I groused and then scolded, “And you didn’t answer my question!” But I didn’t give her a chance to answer, before I launched into my own repartee`, “Speaking of sex toys, what about the last time 4 days ago when you shoved that monster clitoris, that you own, so far up into my colon, I could feel you in my throat as you ejaculated me full of your hot pussy juice; then you controlled my mind to make hold it because you wanted me to absorb your essence into my body! I had to pee in a urine bag for the next 4 hours! I didn’t get much sleep. Now that is the classic definition of sex toy!” But she gave back as good as she got, “It took you so long to urinate, my anal erotic lover, because your erection wouldn’t go down, because it was stuck in the entrance to the urine bag!” Well, she had a point there although I was sure she controlled my mind and wouldn’t let my erection subside. But I let that one go and instead I went back to my original question, “Your Charge Status, Cassandra?” This time she answered me truthfully, “My current discharge rate will keep me at a high state of readiness until we are in a stable orbit.” “Thank you baby, please don’t hesitate to wake me if any unexpected issues arise.” I said, as I unbuckled and floated back to our sleeping area.

As I floated off to sleep, Cassandra was too far away to affect my dreams in REM sleep. Instead, visions of my impressions of what the Space Elevator would be like in operation after months of construction filled my mind. I fired three separate contractors for safety violations. I imagined an Elevator car on the outside of a tall building and taking it from the ground floor all the way to the top. The doors opened and…WHOOOSH! All of the air was sucked out and so was I! There I was floating in the absolute void of space. I thought it was very cold out here in my sleeping clothes! I should have put something warm on if I was going to stay outside. Suddenly I felt myself begin to fall and I couldn’t breathe. Falling faster and faster I began to at last feel warm…now hot, very hot! I was going to burn up like a meteor in the Martian night…oh what an ignominious end to a brilliant career! “Mack…MACK! Wake up sweetheart, you are having a nightmare!” Cassandra was waking me. I was groggy and said “How long”…she cut me off, “6 hours. I have a tube of coffee at your Command Console.” I retorted, “Alright Cassie, I’ll be right there.”

I got to my Command Console, opened the right console cover and took out the coffee tube. It wasn’t hot, but at least it was warm. “Where are we?” I asked. She said, “We are 12 minutes and 37 seconds to invert the ship and make a hard burn with the entire Ion Thruster Array to slow us down so that we can enter orbit around Mars.” “The Moment of Truth is upon us!” I remarked and then I told her, “I have complete faith in your abilities, Lieutenant Mackleroy.” A smile etched over her otherwise stoically concentrated features, “Thank you Commander Mackleroy, that means a lot to me.” I waited. Not saying anything, until exactly 12 minutes and 37 seconds later, the ship began to invert about its center of mass, rotating exactly 180 degrees. Cassandra officiated, “Engaging Ion Thrusters #1 through #8, Commander, now!” The deceleration was palpable, as we were both pressed back in our seats.

“Master Command Flight Deck this is Mission Control, do you read?” The radio crackled. I replied “Control…Flight…reading you 5X5…over.” Cassandra said, “At the current distance between the two planets, the radio transmission time, one way is 9.67 minutes, so sometime in the next 20 minutes or so, we would be hearing back from them.” “Very well, Lieutenant. You know it seems to me that if they were asking about status, they should have asked all of that in the initial Transmission. Hell by the time they get back to us we will already be in orbit!” I was thinking out loud. “Velocity now 8,500 kph, coming up on MIECO (Main Ion Engine Cut-off) at T-3 minutes 39 seconds.” My gorgeous pilot intoned and then added, “At MIECO, velocity is projected match Phobos orbital velocity of 7697 kph or 4783 mph.” At MIECO we will use maneuvering thrusters to invert the ship back to its original orientation with the Flight Deck at the head of the train. Then when we get ready to jettison the 3 decent modules, we will manually undock the Ion Engine Array then re-dock it with the Alpha Team module. Each module has built in fuel lines so the Ion Engine Array can dock with any module, or of course dock directly with the Master Command Flight Deck.

PHOBOS ORBITAL VELOCITY MATCH-Day 214 Complete: Start Mars Time=13:47.18

By definition, a sidereal day on Mars is the length of time that it takes the planet to rotate once on its axis so that stars appear in the same place in the night sky. On Earth, this takes exactly 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds. In comparison, on Mars, a sidereal day lasts 24 hours, 37 minutes, and 22 seconds.

For the first time since we left the Moon to embark on our 214 day trip to get here, there was an exciting view through the Flight Deck Port Lights.

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First view of the surface.jpeg

As we got ready for surface decent detachments, I needed to check the orbital mechanics calculation one more time. The exact positioning for Phobos is absolutely critical if this space elevator has any chance of working.

The Actual Equation won't transfer from the word document and there are no tools to make one on this platform so I am left to spell it out a sentence structure-

G = Gravitational constant

2 = Mass of the celestial body

T = rotational period of the body

The mass of Mars is 6.4171×10▲23 kg and the sidereal period is 88,642 seconds. The synchronous orbit thus has a radius of 20,428 km (12693 mi) from the center of mass of Mars, and therefore the areostationary orbit can be defined as approximately 17,032 km above the surface of the Mars equator.

The synchronous orbit thus has a radius of 20,428 km (12693 mi) from the center of mass of Mars, and therefore areostationary orbit can be defined as approximately 17,032 km above the surface of the Mars equator. The prefix areo- derives from Ares, the ancient Greek god of war.

Cassandra asked, “Would you like a second opinion on the orbital mechanics calculations sir?” In many…OK most cases if a female member of the crew asked that question, there would be acrimony. I have much more respect for women than to put up with that kind of bullshit! Yet this was what I was aware of: Cassandra’s 10 Multiphasic ultra-sophisticated Quantum computers working in series –parallel were capable of processing more than 400 terabits a second, even as her magnificent mechanical brain did all of the myriad other functions to keep her self-aware and lifelike. How you may ask? Because unlike standard computers that process linear algorithms which 0 or 1 and are essentially on-off switches that do that very fast, a single quantum computer can run through the entire alphabet and 0 through 9. An array of 10 of these machines, interlocked in series-parallel are capable of becoming self-aware. I said, “Please lieutenant; I would appreciate a check. This mission is far too valuable not get it exactly right.” Less than minute later she said, “Your calculations are correct sir.” Then she asked, “Are we still on schedule to detach the Ion Engine Thruster Array?” “Yes”, I told her and added, “I was just getting to that when you asked the question.” I then keyed the radio microphone, “Landing Group this this is Flight Deck Actual, do you read me?” “Group Captain Grigori Vladimovich Ragulin here Commander and I am hearing you loud and clear.” I then used the familiar to give him the same chance with me, “Grigori I know how absolutely thorough that you and your team are, so rather than me spending your time asking you questions, why don’t you just run through your checklist for me.” “Heh, that is what I like about you, Mack…how do you say…ah, you don’t like the bull shitting, huh? So, here is our status: We have made EVA’s on all 3 landing modules and double checked that the parachutes will deploy when they are supposed to. All retro and maneuvering rocket checkouts have been performed and we are in great shape. We have been in contact with the Transportation Director on the surface and they are on standby to come out and pick us up as soon as we land. And lastly, we are standing by to release the IETA package to be picked up by Construction Module on your “Go” Commander.” “Outstanding, Group Captain; you are GO to release the IETA Package to the Construction Module. We will make two more revolutions of the planet before we clear you for detachment. Are you confident of your entry calculations?” I finished. Grigori Vladimovich hesitated and then said something that told me he was a very astute judge of character, “You know we have double checked them Mack, but if that very lovely wife of yours (that was the cover story that he had been given) would give me another check, you know I then think we might both rest a little easier eh, my friend?” “She is already on it Grigori!” I came back.

A little less than 3 minutes later when Cassandra keyed her own microphone, I was a little surprised at the vamp voice that she used, was almost an overt flirt, “Group Captain Ragulin, your entry calculations are perfect.” Then she switched to Russian and since I don’t speak it, I didn’t understand the short conversation that they shared. But I did hear a snippet of “T-1 hr., 47 min. 31 sec.” When she was done, she said, “I told him in his native language that his middle name of Vladimovich meant that his father’s 1st name was Vladimov and he was surprised that I was aware of that and he said it was traditional to add “Ich” to the middle name for a man and “nova” for his sister. Then we talked more about the entry into the atmosphere and I told him that Tharsis will be 1,846 kilometers downrange from their detachment, which is now at T-1 hr., 45 min. 16 sec., by the way. He just raved about me and hoped that he would get to talk with me when we got to the surface. I just told him I hope so too, and I didn’t want to tell him that wasn’t going to happen.” I marveled at her, “You bucking for a promotion to Lieutenant Commander are you Lieutenant?” She perked up, “Ooh, that would mean a pay raise would it not, my Master and Commander?” I retorted, “Cassie you are already rich beyond most peoples’ dreams, why does a modest salary make you excited?” She said, “You are very rich, my love, but I like making my own money! It means that I am truly free.” “Yeah, OK I get that and it makes sense to me. Thanks for the explanation.” I smiled at her.

19:21.27 Mars Time; Still Day 1=November 13, 2113 on Earth

Cassandra called it every bit as well as Capcom: “T-19, 18, 17, 16…Master arm switches on…12, 11, 10… Stand by to blow release bolts…3, 2, 1…Detach! Dosvidaniya Grigori Vladimovich, udachi, dovstrechi.” Exactly 50 seconds later, “Remote Detachment of the Reactor Module successful, Commander. Landing will be downrange from Tharsis at 44 .7 kilometers.” Cassandra droned. I Said, “That’s a nice safe distance, but not too far for pick up and retrieval, assuming the module lands intact. Nice job, my green eyed Martian beauty.” She turned in her seat and regarded me with a slight smile and with a slight tilt of her head, but said nothing. I could have tuned into what she was thinking, but I still was nowhere near real efficient with my system yet and I had a lot more work ahead of me before I was going to be able to get some rest after this long shift.

I keyed the microphone, “Digger One this is Flight Deck actual, do you read me?” I am reading you 5X5, Commander; this is Ray Rodeski, over.” Well the good news, Ray, is that we don’t have to fly out and find a rock, we have one right here,” I said and Ray came back, “Yeah Mac and it is just the right size and shape too. Something really smacked into it to have it end up shaped like it is.” “Well that assumes that it is large enough to assume a spherical shape to start with and that is not clear to me that it ever was.” I said and then asked, “Are you ready to attach boosters to that Rock (Phobos) and fly it out to an areostationary orbit, Ray?” “Yes Mack, say take a look at the diagram that I just sent you. I’m a visual guy and this helps my team in our planning:”

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Areostationary Orbit plus Tether design.jpeg

Ray continued, “You can see from the design diagram that we need to go out 11,352 kilometers, Mack, and we’re thinking a large ellipsoid orbital transfer. She’s in an elliptical orbit now and because Mars is an oblate spheroid, not as radical as Earth is, but still that has to figure into our final calcs. The other Perturbations that may ultimately affect our final areostationary orbit are Deimos (Mars’ other moon) and mighty Jupiter when their orbits get close plus you know Mars gets hit with a whole rubble pile every year and we’re bound to take a few small hits here and there. We’re going have to have a pretty robust maintenance program.” Once the Space Elevator was completed, the Construction team would make their decent down to the surface. Then Ray said, “The EVA team just attached the Ion Engine Thruster array back on to the construction module, Mack. Take us in close and then my guys will open up our module and then attach the thruster packages out of the construction module and then will fly that rock out where it will do us the most good.”

11:41.23 Mars Time; Day 2=November 14, 2113 on Earth

Cassandra and I listened to the radio chatter, as we stood by to provide emergency help if it was needed. “Digger One…Sagan-Tharsis…We now have Phobos in our aperture. You are very close…just keep trying to gently nudge it towards the peak of Olympus Mons” (the Tharsis Plateau is a huge area that is also shared by giant extinct volcanoes. See the map of the entire Tharsis Quadrangle)

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Tharsis_Quadrangle-Map.jpeg

“Good-good; that’s it Digger 1; now you can set all of your Ion Thrusters to hold that position!”

“Sagan-Tharsis…Digger One…We aim to please! Now we can start the real fun! We are preparing to send down the first Carbon Nano-Tube Chain Array. It might drift a little in the Martian wind, but this is the best local weather that we’re likely to get for some time. OK…It’s on the way!”

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Space elevator on the Sagan Dome.jpeg

I heard Cassandra ask, “How long do you think it will to take for the first chain to reach the surface, Mack?” I said, “This 1st one is 18,000 km in case they miss the dome entirely. Then at least it will be dangling on the surface somewhere that they can go out pick it up and get it over to the Dome and then get it set into the aperture. The schedule for the 1st one is 15 days, because they are only going 50 km /hr. Once they get attached to the surface and another one comes up and attaches to Phobos, then they are supposed to speed up to 1 per 24 hrs. That is really cooking!”

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MarsAndTheSpaceElevator.jpeg

Cassandra was silent for some 20 minutes or so before she said something, “We will not be able to make love during this entire emergency standby will we my Mack?” I smiled at her and said, if you mean turn off all of the communications and get into what we both love…I’m afraid not, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t be intimate. What it also means is that we are going to need to on alternating watch schedules. I’ll need to maintain peak performance, and you will need to stay at your maximum state of charge in case we really do have to face an emergency.

09:18.42 Mars Time; Day 181= May 12, 2114 on Earth

Space Elevator Complete

Asteroid Survey Satellite has been high elliptical polar orbit for 43 Martian days.

“I have radio contact with mission control, Commander.” Cassandra said officiously and with respect, I said, “Very well, Lieutenant, switch the com so that you can also hear.” She then issued a vampy, “Aye-aye…Sir.” And then she puckered up her lips and gave me an air kiss. She made me want to grab her and love her and maybe…, Capcom came over the radio, “We have a new mission for you. Part of the mission profile calls for you to recover your mining crews and as much equipment as you can salvage and make plans to proceed to Europa where you will effect a water ice mining and mass driver operation for the sole purpose sending the matter steam to the dwarf planet Ceres in the Asteroid Belt. We calculate that Europa contains as much or more water as all of the Earth’s oceans combined. We would entertain any comments that you may have Commander.”

I looked at Cassandra with some trepidation and she acknowledged my fear by switching off the com so that we could converse off line. She said, “The radiation?” “It’s absolutely lethal!” I said and then I added, “We would have one chance and that is because Europa is tidally locked with Jupiter, so the back side of Europa is always pointing away from the planet and so might provide a decent shield for a while. Still, I can’t leave anybody there in good conscience; the radiation belts around that massive planet extend way beyond Europa’s orbit. Maybe we can figure out how to set up an automated system of some kind?” Cassandra wondered, “How is sending water ice to Ceres going to help out the conditions on Mars? There isn’t enough atmospheric pressure to support liquid water; even if conditions on the surface were warm enough to melt water-which it isn’t.” I nodded and said, “Of course you’re right, but they all know this too. Then again, we’ve known that a very concentrated form of salt water has existed on the surface since the early 21st century robotic missions, but the energy required for desalinating that concentrated brine is very high and the end result is that there isn’t that much to support the kind of settlements that are planned in the future. There must be something that they’re not telling us. I wonder if they have found a way to somehow get Ceres into orbit around Mars? That would restart the internal Martian dynamo and that would shield the planet from radiation. The problem with that theory is that the entire Tharsis quadrangle is volcanic and if the core came alive again, that would certainly destroy the colony. OK let’s get back to them.” She motioned to me that the com was open and I began, “Capcom, this is Mars Command. We have two primary concerns. One: If the goal is to initiate terraforming procedures by assembling the components for an atmosphere, what are your plans for warming the planet? Two: Since the Martian core has essentially gone cold and the planet lacks a magnetosphere, what are your plans to keep the solar wind from dissipating the atmosphere once it gets established? Over to you Capcom.”

At the current distance between the two planets, the radio transmission time, one way is 9.88 minutes, so sometime in the next 20 minutes or so, we would be hearing back from them. Cassandra asked with a cultured curiosity, “What does my brilliant engineer-lover think their plan is?” I thought about the problem and began to think out loud, “OK…so creating an atmosphere is no easy task, but it is child’s play compared to creating a magnetosphere. If you were to somehow crash land an asteroid big enough to melt the core, the entire surface would melt and remain molten for centuries, perhaps millennia. So that’s not an option. I suppose you could orbit a very large body to create a moon that would cause the core to heat up from tidal friction, but the energy that would be needed would be…uh…it would be huge, more than I have any idea of how to create. But maybe they have some ideas that I haven’t heard of yet. Perhaps they have the Very Large Hadron Collider in operation now and there is new science based upon something that was just discovered.” Cassandra smiled at me and said, “Well at least you’re humble.” I groused, “That would be humble…Sir!” She vamped back, “You know, it has been a long time since I have felt your lips kiss my ass; maybe it is time for you to try again?” “That’s sass…just plain sass, and unbecoming of an officer and a lady.” I complained in a mock dramatic display and she said, “I thought you wanted a lady on your arm and a whore in your bed, am I wrong?” “Where did you dredge that up?” I asked and she laughed and said, “In one of your dreams…I got to read your salacious thoughts as you were dreaming.” “All you got to read were my brain farts, because that’s not what I want in a woman and you damned well know it.” I said in all sincerity. But Cassandra was having none of that. “I know you believe that about yourself Mack, but trust me when I tell you that I have been empirically building a database about what your fantasies about me are much more about what I just described. I want you to look hard into your heart Mack and then tell me I am wrong if you dare!”

The banter between us went on as we batted the repartee back and forth like a tennis match and it was the first time we played together in several grueling weeks and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. But some 35 minutes later, we were back in business as the radio crackled, “Mars Command, this is Capcom. The brain trust has assembled a white paper to cover the general theory of what we plan to accomplish. We are going to transmit that to you now. Once you have read it and thoroughly understand the principles, transmit your acknowledgement and then we’ll outline the mission profile to you; Capcom out.”

“May I speak familiarly Commander?” Cassandra asked me and I said, “By all means.” “Mack, a white paper; what do you think that means?” I thought a moment before postulating, “Well Cassie, I think that they must have developed some new scientific principles that we will need to completely understand before we are given the mission that they want us to either lead or fulfill ourselves.” She asked, “You once said that you thought that we would be able to go back home again, Mack; do you still think that is possible?” I slowly reached to touch her, cognizant that a sudden move might actually push us both away, in this zero G environment, and I said, “There are many unknowns, Cassie, but when we find out what they’re up to, an opportunity could present itself. We need to be ready to take advantage of it and that means remaining in control of this ship, which also means never landing on Mars…” She interrupted me to finish my thought with a question, “Because we might not be able to leave?” I smiled and said, “Listen to you! You can take the spook off of the planet, but you can’t take the spook out of you. I totally agree with you, baby; we would be virtual prisoners down there under Mars civil authority and they would see us as major human assets to plug into their new society. No thanks!” She had that look; that look that I hadn’t seen for a while; adoration and longing, then she said, “It has been a long time since you have referred to me as your baby, my Mack. I miss our physical love.” The radio crackled again and the computer automatically began to download the White Paper, but then the download stopped abruptly, as she was staring at her console in seeming disbelief.

“Mack…there is a top secret message coming in…it’s from the Admiral, Mack. The metadata says “For your eyes only-Top Secret-Crypto Clearance Only-Death warrants have been preauthorized to be carried out against any suspected violators!” DECODE: *VERA-SEMCO-PROMENDALE*

“Mack, I do not have that CODE in any of my systems. I can not even find a reference to it! Cassandra was baffled, the very first time I had witnessed that from her on this entire mission so far. Finally I told her, “Don’t worry, my gorgeous wonder, that secret was entrusted to me only.” I tripped the switch to open my right hand console; when that door opened, I popped open a small lid and pressed two buttons with two fingers simultaneously that activated a monocle that came out of the ceiling just above my head, extended and then double rotated out so that my left eye was covered. It scanned my iris and then issued two chirps and then issued a synthesized voice command: “Mackleroy, Clarence Woodbridge; Commander; Lockheed Mars Command***Ready for input-” I then issued another code: “0100A01” Then the voice synthesizer responded “Top Secret-Crypto Clearance is authorized.” I responded, “VERA-SEMCO-PROMENDALE.” A series of digital beeps, blips, and tweets were issued…and then the Admiral’s voice came over the speaker:

“We have a lot of important issues to discuss Mack, so I am authorizing you to print a transcript of this entire conversation. You will destroy it as soon as you have committed all of this to memory. I am going to give you a lot to think about and I will not turn it over to you, until I need a response. First, let’s get the house keeping out of the way. Back in 2104, you asked me to invest the fortune that you got for selling your estate and technology to Canada. In 2106 I was asked to become the Minister of National Defense and I accepted that position and the new Prime Minister asked me to stay on so I accepted. Since 2106, both of our fortunes have been in a blind trust. Since neither one of us could be remotely considered risk averse, I had them take a very aggressive stance to our investment program. They succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. We are both multi-billionaires; your personal fortune was 4. 27 billion the last time I looked, but it is multiplying at rapid rate; but more of why that is going to be important later.

The Lockheed Corporate Trust is getting ready to send you on the most dangerous mission that has ever been attempted. In fact, my team has determined that the Lockheed corporate trust is ready to sacrifice you and, of course Cassandra just so they can get enough data to test the feasibility of a new science and the technological spin-offs from it. We and our allies in the American Defense Department consider this a no-go scenario. More importantly there is a brain trust of billionaires, that I am now a part of, that are prepared to invest in a new ship that can make the Lockheed mission with enough of a margin of safety, that your safe return is an absolute certainty-baring any catastrophic collisions with large space rocks or gamma ray bursts from nearby stars, of course. Now this is where it gets interesting. We have known since the end of the 20th century that the first successful mining of the asteroid belt would produce the very first Multi-Trillionares. Mack, once we invest in the new Lockheed ship and the Lockheed corporate trust mission is completed, we will be able to rent the ship and put it to work and I’m not talking chump change here; I’m talking about making enough money to help change the world. I’m talking about making more money than most governments can spend. I am not going to go over all of the new discoveries at the Very Large Hadron Collider underneath the Great Plains. Yes, they were just completing it when you first started your training for this mission; I’m going to let them fill you in with a white paper they are preparing for you… over!”

I said, “Admiral, are you ordering us back to Earth? More importantly, how will we actually get down from orbit? I don’t think Lockheed will actually want to spend any money to come up and get us…over.”

Cassandra was positively aglow, “My handsome lover, you are my tiger! You said we would find a way to get home; it appears that you are not only brilliant, but you are prescient as well! I do love you so much!” I laughed and said, “Ah, my gorgeous space beauty, thank you for your confidence in me. However, I had a saying when I used to chase pirates on the high seas. Sometimes good old fashioned luck is more important than skills.” She seemed marveled with me and commented, “I have often wondered about you and your apparent luck. I think that a smart brave man makes his own luck.” I chuckled at her blatant use of a common cliché. Then I posed the question, “So you don’t think it was just dumb luck that I found you on that little scrub of an island?” She was now serious and I could tell that the subject was extremely important to her, “Not your dumb luck, Mack; it was my luck! You were extremely deliberate in your attack and you possessed all of the skills and technology to see me get off of the Black Swan and find me on that little island and if you hadn’t found me that would have been my end! But you did find me, and then you helped me to become free and independent…Mack, the Admiral is back.”

“I can’t order you to do anything, Mack, because we never had this conversation. However, I would like to plant a seed in your mind…You could consider your eminent deaths in the massive radiation belt of Jupiter to be an illegal order. Since you are both employees of the Lockheed Corporate Space Trust, you might even see it as a Breach of Contract. But of course, that is all up to you. Once you get their ship back in Earth orbit, we will send up a space plane and tell them that you are part of the investment. Once you are both on the ground, you are going to have some rehabilitation time adapting to real gravity again. So will you Cassandra, just not as much as this…gentleman… that you are apparently in love with…although for the life of me I don’t know why. Listen to me-BOTH OF YOU! FIGURE IT OUT and GET THE HELL BACK HERE! We have a lot of work to do before we can have a chance at making real history…Bedford out!”

Just then, I had a very black thought…like Black Hole black, but I knew if anyone could appreciate it, it would certainly be Cassandra. I said, “Cassie you’ve had a lot of time to read the manuals for this ship. Is there any way that Lockheed can override our command and take over this ship? After all, what we are getting ready to do might be seen as mutiny by corporate management.” She was perfectly still for a few moments and that told me that she was accessing data from deep storage that was not part of her working memory. Finally she said, as she pointed at a small access panel, “There are three circuit boards under there.” I asked, “Do you have any idea what would happen if we just pulled them out?” She responded like the amazing technician that was one of her primary jobs on board. “They are partly integrated into the ships systems. Air conditioning, Carbon Dioxide Scrubbers, and Ion Engine override. But these functions are to override our commands. If we pull the boards out, our controls cannot be overridden.” “Pull them all out, baby.” I implored, “Do it now, before they get any wind about what we are going to do.” I really admire how beautiful and gracefully she is when it is important to her to make her movement very efficient. She deposited them in a storage bin that had contained consumables that she used but were now empty. She asked me, “Why did Lockheed tell us to recover our asteroid miners, when we have not even deployed them yet?” I groused, “That’s because those nerd accountants think a single crew can work around the clock for six months and not make any mistakes and certainly not fatal mistakes.” If we didn’t employ all the resources that we did, the Space Elevator would still be 2 to 3 months behind schedule and that is without any fatalities.”

Cassandra said, “What are you orders, Commander Mackleroy?” I was thinking out loud as I answered, “The crews are all going to have to transfer to the Space Elevator and go down to the surface. That was where they were going to ultimately end up anyway. We can park the 3 modules near the elevator. Let’s get into our pressure suits in case the damned airlock malfunctions. We can fit them all into this entire area for the hour it will take to ferry them all over there. We can hook up a line so they can go hand over hand without getting lost in space.”

14:41.56 Mars Time; Day 181= May 12, 2114 on Earth

All Crew have departed to the Space Elevator

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Top Elevator at Phobos.jpeg

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“What is our fuel status?” I asked Cassandra and she immediately responded with analysis that I had already roughly estimated, “We were scheduled to travel deep into the asteroid belt, but did not, so we have that plus the return back, then we were scheduled to go back out and move them or pick them up and return back to mars. Our entire fuel profile was to ferry mining teams back and forth to various deep space points and return to Mars orbit. We should have 77.4 percent of our fuel supply still intact. I am verifying now. There was a pause as she activated data screens, and then she said, “System Diagnostics indicates that we have 78.1 percent of our fuel intact.”

I mused out loud, “Hmm…if I’m not mistaken, even at close approach when Mars and Jupiter are in conjunction they are something like 342,000,000 million miles apart; they were going to send us on a one way mission…” She interrupted me, “Mack the next conjunction is not going to be for 12 years. We would have had to travel over 689,000,000 million miles to get there, if we were on our way to get there now.” I said, “So we get out there slow and we have to come back to mars slow, all because we don’t have enough fuel to burn long enough to build up enough velocity to get there and back in a reasonable time frame; this trip was not going to be measured in months, it was going to take years! We would have both been overcome by radiation affects…Cassie; we wouldn’t have even made it back to Mars alive!” She looked at me with concern on her face.

I postulated, “Radio communication from the elevator car to the ground is almost instantaneous, so the ground has probably already contacted mission control on Earth, the question is when did that happen and have they received a message back from Earth. Well we can’t know that, so we have to assume the worst.” I looked at her to see if she agreed with me and she looked at me in the eyes, “Hope for the best plan for the worst! That is the phrase that you have used before is it not, Mack?” “Exactly, now we need to calculate our velocity profile all the way home so that we can predict where earth is going to be when we get there which will become our aiming point. We are only going to get one chance at this; because if we miss, we are going to be goners…drifting in space without enough fuel to get us anywhere.” She said, “May I suggest that we wait here 67 hours and then we will have enough Delta V to accelerate us into a Hohmann Transfer to get home and that leaves about enough to get into a parking orbit. I said, Well that is the start of a flight plan. At full power for the entire Ion Engine Array, what velocity will we obtain at the end of that acceleration burn?” She was making the calculations on the nav computer, when she finally said, as we leave Mars orbit, our initial velocity will be 3,240 MPH. “If we make a full ion engine thruster pack hard burn at 1 G for 30 minutes, we will reach our maximum velocity of 43,740 MPH and we will have gone 11,500 miles. When we get there at 221,850,000 from Mars, so we need to be at where the Earth will be in its orbit around the sun. Then all we need to do then is enter into orbit around the Earth to be able to get home again. This will be 208 day trip and we will have just enough Delta V left to slow to 17500 MPH for an insertion orbit. We have maneuvering thrusters to stabilize the orbit and then we wait for the Admiral to come up and get us.” I said, “I like everything that you just said, Cassandra. But it won’t be the Admiral coming up to get us, just some of his people

Cassandra vamped at me, "At last we can make love on the way back, my Mack." I smiled at her I said, Oh Cassie, you know I am looking forward to that. Yet, I am afraid we still have one major duty to perform, before we get into the routine of our lives on the way home." She hesitated, seeming somewhat deflated, but then she brightened up, "Of course, we will need to download the white paper and read and understand it so that we can report it all to the Admiral!" I laughed and said, "You are still a spook at heart my lovely, that is exactly what we need to do. The only question is...do we have the entirety downloaded in the buffer, or did they interrupt the broadcast, when they found out we have actually committed a mutiny. Is there any way that you can query the comm system to see if they sent the whole thing?" Cassandra took several seconds to search her short term memory, after which she said that she would decompress data and search for any references that she may have compressed and filed in long term memory storage. She suggested that I get in an exercise period while she was functionally not available to me. I agreed with her and left to change into my gear and hit the gym. Later, as I was going through my routine, I also had to consider that Cassandra would not find the reference that she was looking for and that we might actually have to research the massive instructional atlas database in order find what we were looking for. I felt a little disheartened I was forced to consider that even if we could reconstruct the entire white paper, it may actually take most of the trip back to interpret and understand it.

Intermission while we wait to see what the white paper will reveal about the new physics that has just come out in the 22nd century.