The Attempt (The Martian Manifesto Book 1) Read online

  Ding.

  He looked over at his computer, and saw that a personal message had just arrived. He decided to ignore it. “I really need a nap,” he thought. He closed his eyes.

  Ding.

  Charles’ eyes snapped open. His computer was flashing ‘2 messages’ in the upper right corner. With a groan, he rolled over with his back to the computer, and closed his eyes again.

  Ding. Ding.

  “Gosh darn it!” he exclaimed as he jumped out of bed and stormed over to his computer. “You would think a man all the way on Mars could get some peace and quiet!” His monitor indicated ‘4 messages.’ He jabbed his finger at the message indicator, and then poked at the first one to watch it.

  The face of his beautiful fiancée Terri filled the screen. She was wearing a white blouse and navy blazer, and looked as immaculate as always. “Charles,” she began. “I’m on lunch break, and I’m overwhelmed with all the wedding tasks that you’ve left behind for me to do. I’m still waiting for your list of groomsmen and their measurements. How long do I have to wait?”

  “Oh, great. I totally forgot,” Charles muttered to himself as he tapped the second message.

  Terri was holding up a sheet of paper. “Do you see this list?” Charles noticed the paper was filled with lines of writing. “This is the list of all the things we have left to do. We’re already late in picking the honeymoon locations. Do I have to do everything myself? I talked to three wedding planners, and they said that without your input that they couldn’t guarantee anything.”

  “Wedding planners?” Charles mused. “Ha, as if she would be satisfied with anyone other than herself putting this together.” He thumped the tip of his finger against the third message.

  “Charles. I watched some awful wedding toasts the other day on the vids. For our wedding, I want all toasts and speeches sent to me for approval and revision. Please notify all of your friends and family that they are to send these to me at least three months before the wedding. With so much to do, I need at least that much lead time to edit them.”

  Charles pushed the final message indicator with trepidation. Terri had a habit of saving the worst for last. Once more her face filled the screen. If she was actually here in front of him, Charles would have told here that if she kept frowning like that she would have wrinkles before her time. Terri was on a roll now. “You know, I’m getting tired of this lack of communication. While you’re out there playing with your space toys, I’m here doing all the work. Don’t you realize that your real life is here, and not out there playing Buck Rogers? What you’re doing out there is of no consequence. Would you just focus for once in your life on what’s important? At this point, I almost don’t even WANT to hear from you. So there, I said it. Get your act together and send me a list of completed tasks.” The screen went dark.

  “Is of no consequence?” he stuttered at the blank monitor. “Finding the first alien life forms is of no consequence?” Charles shook his head. As beautiful as Terri was, he was beginning to have his doubts. He wondered if his future would consist of a plethora of harassment by Terri with her constantly stating that he was performing unsatisfactorily. “You know, right now, I don’t want to hear from you either!” he said to the screen.

  He stormed back to his bunk and lay down. “So much for some peaceful shut eye,” he thought to himself.

  CHAPTER 19

  Meanwhile on the Cycler which was still many months away, Bonnie finished drying her hands on a towel. All of the dishes from the breakfast meal were finally clean, so she walked over to the animal area that had been set up in the corner of the central module. The children were hard at work on their morning chores. Her youngest daughter, Julie, was expertly milking Lotus the goat. The Hampton twins were pounding asteroid rocks to create more sand for the floor of the pen. “That’s a perfect outlet for those two energetic and mischievous boys,” she thought.

  Her daughter Jean was raking the sand for animal feces to be deposited into the incinerator. In another bucket, she would shovel in any sand that was damp from urine. There had been a brief but tense argument early in the trip, as the astronauts had insisted per NASA protocol that everything go into the recycler. The colonists had rebelled at the thought of animal urine being recycled into their drinking water, and feces into who knew what. For a day, the Called had even barricaded the astronauts into their living quarters at Brother Jacobs’ insistence. After many messages were exchanged with the people on Earth, NASA had relented, and peace finally restored.

  Just then, Bonnie’s husband Jeff walked up to her and kissed her on the top of her head. “Breakfast was great, Hon,” he said. “Your work group was really efficient today. For the first time, I recorded zero complaints. Usually at least one person complains about a dirty dish or no condiment packets, but there were none this time. Keep up the good work!”

  Bonnie was a bit flabbergasted. This was the first nice thing that Jeff had said to her in a long time. Jeff kept talking. “I need to talk to Jean for a bit. I’ll probably be going on a spacewalk soon and will need her help with my suit and a few other things. Come over here, Jean. Daddy wants to talk to you.”

  Jean put down her rake and walked over. “Hi, Dad. What’s up?”

  “Let’s head over to our room. I need to run through some space procedures with you.”

  “Sure, but what about the doodoo duty?” Jean asked.

  “Mom will do it for you,” Jeff turned towards Bonnie with a big grin, “won’t you, Hon?”

  “Uh, yes Dear, of course,” Bonnie stuttered.

  “Good. That’s decided then. Let’s go, Jean.”

  # # #

  Jean skipped over to her bed and flopped down as her father closed the door to their room. She was glad to be relieved of being the pooper scooper for the day. Her father sat down on the bed opposite her.

  “So, I haven’t had a chance to speak to you much with all of my duties as Platinum One. I wanted to ask what you thought of your experiences so far.”

  “Well, I wish we had more room, but I can do lots of things that I couldn’t do on Earth. We’ve invented a new game of freeze tag. You can only unfreeze someone after you bounce off of a wall and then the ceiling. We also have some new moves for follow the leader that are pretty outrageous when done in the tunnel leading to the Pegasus. I also tried playing Frisbee with Lucky, but all I had was one piece of old cardboard, and she chewed that pretty quickly.”

  “I’ll talk to Pilot Sam,” her father said. “She seems nice, and I bet she could find something for my pretty Princess to use.”

  “Wow, that would be great,” Jean replied.

  “What do you think of this whole idea of being in space?”

  “I wasn’t sure at first, but I’m really excited now,” Jean said, her eyes shining. “I love learning all about this asteroid and Mars. I think I want to join the astronaut corps when I get older!”

  “That’s wonderful, Princess. I’ll talk to Pilot Sam and ask her to fill you in on what she does. In fact, I think you should follow her around and learn as much as you can. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Wow, do you think she’d let me? I have a million questions.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do and that she’d love to explain to someone interested in what she does. How could she say no to my little Princess? Maybe she’ll even let you sit in her seat within the Pegasus and tell you all about the controls. You could be a pilot too someday, just like her.”

  “Ooh, that would be so exciting. When can I start?”

  “First, you have to be organized. Here, I have this present for you,” her father stated, handing her what looked like a small book.

  “What is it?” Jean asked breathlessly.

  “It’s a diary. I want you to write in it everything that you learn from Pilot Sam. This way you won’t forget a thing that she tells you and you can study it over and over.”

  “Oh look, it has a pencil in it. Can I write in it right now?”

&nb
sp; “Of course, Princess. Write down, ‘I will follow Pilot Sam everywhere and write down everything that she does.’”

  Jean stuck her tongue out to the side as she wrote her first entry into the diary.

  “And I have one more thing for you to do. I’ll be going on a spacewalk in the near future, and I need someone I can trust to help me with my spacesuit. You’ll learn all about how to spacewalk and how to take care of a spacesuit by helping Daddy.”

  Jean wrote another line in her diary that said, ‘Learn all about spacesuits.’ She then jumped up and hugged her father. “This is the best present ever,” she cried. “I’m going to be a pilot someday!”

  “That’s Daddy’s big girl. Just remember, write everything down in your diary. Don’t forget a thing.”

  “I will Dad. Can I go out and play with the others now? They should be done with their chores and we always try to find something new to do.”

  “Sure, scoot. Here, let me put your diary on the shelf over here. From now on, this will be its resting place when you’re not writing in it.” Her father took the diary and placed it on the shelf that was next to Jean’s bed. “Okay, now get out of here before I think of something that needs doing.”

  Jean didn’t need a second reminder. She took off screaming delightedly down the hallway back towards the center module. Jeff nodded, satisfied that he had set in motion Brother Jacobs’ plan to learn everything they could about both astronauts’ activities.

  # # #

  The next evening, Bonnie was on waitressing duty. She could see George Bigg’s wife Celia standing at the Platinum table, laughing and flirting with all of the men there. The Platinum Two’s wife had left one of her blouse buttons unbuttoned, and was now leaning over and whispering something to Bonnie’s husband Jeff, who was ogling her chest and laughing out loud.

  Bonnie expertly carried the three dinner plates to the Gold table nearby. She looked at the Hampton twins’ parents. “You both had the Chicken Kiev dinners, right?” When they nodded, she placed the plates down in front of them without dropping the third plate. “And is this Celia’s spot?” she asked them, nodding towards the empty place at the table. When they responded affirmatively, she placed the plate containing Beef Stroganoff in the designated spot. Bonnie then turned towards the Platinum table and called, “Your dinner’s ready, Celia. Better come get it before it gets cold.”

  She saw Celia turn and give her a dirty look before turning back and running her hand down Jeff’s neck and whispering something, making him laugh once more. Celia then came over to her assigned table and gracefully seated herself. “I hope you remembered this time to put out the salt and pepper bottles,” she said. “This NASA food can be so bland without added condiments, and I don’t appreciate having to wait looking at my food while someone fetches what should be here already. And I don’t know why we have to put up with those silly bottles. It’s not like we’re weightless and going to have salt and pepper loose and floating around in here.”

  “Here, Celia. The bottles are right in front of you,” Bonnie responded, reaching for the bottles that were in the middle of the table and placing them right next to Celia’s dish.

  Celia grabbed the pepper bottle and was about to drip some on her food when she shrieked, “What’s this?! There’s old yellow egg all around this plate!” She then yelled even louder, “And there’s, there’s, I can’t believe what I’m seeing, a couple of goat hairs stuck to them!”

  Celia jumped up, sending her chair crashing to the floor. “Who was on dishwasher duty this morning? I demand to know!” She proceeded to storm over to kitchen area and grabbed the work assignment sheets with Bonnie in tow. “Where’s today’s list?” she demanded, leafing through the sheets. “Who took today’s list?” she said, looking around at the workers, who all shrugged.

  Old Sue, who was also on duty and heating additional meals, turned and said, “Those things fall off the wall all the time. Perhaps it fell into the food refuse bin?”

  “Someone look inside for the list, now!” she demanded. When no one responded, Celia started to push around the leftovers in the trash with her hands, searching for the list, when she realized how foolish she looked. “Don’t you people realize I could have gotten food poisoning?” she complained.

  “You’re right, of course,” Bonnie said. “What’s the appropriate punishment for someone who shirks their dishwashing duties?”

  Celia started to say something, and then closed her mouth. She realized that whatever she said would probably only rebound upon herself at some point. “Well, I guess everyone’s entitled to one mistake. Just don’t let it happen again,” she said. “Now, someone get me another Beef Stroganoff, and on a clean plate this time!” She whirled around and stomped back to her table.

  Behind her back, Bonnie exchanged a glance with Sue, who gave her a wink. They then both started giggling like school girls. “Sue’s plan to leave one dirty dish at the bottom of the stack for later use with Celia was perfect,” thought Bonnie. “Maybe I should stand up for myself more often.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Two months later…

  Chinese moon base chief scientist Li Julong watched with trepidation as the spaceship from Earth approached. He had not been told who his additional companion upon the journey to Mars would be, and Julong suspected he would not be happy. “It’s going to be another silly military adjunct, I’m sure, whose only assignment will be to constantly spy upon me,” he thought. “I wonder what they promised the poor fellow to get him to come all this way on a fool’s mission.”

  The long slender spaceship was slowly descending on its four strap-on engines which were arranged symmetrically around its base. The engines had been specially designed to make them easy to snap in new fuel modules while traversing the emptiness of space. For this leg of the trip, the ship had utilized fuel that Julong’s group had launched into Moon orbit via the mass driver.

  As the ship reached eye-level of the upper rim of Shackleton crater, the scientist turned and headed for the elevator. “I should be there when this fellow disembarks from the landing pad next to the mass driver below,” he muttered. “It would be just my luck that he decides to commandeer some of the container transports that I need for the next fuel launch for the Mars trip, putting us behind schedule.”

  As Julong waited for the elevator, he noticed that it was taking an extraordinary amount time to arrive, as if many people were using it. Finally the elevator chimed and the doors opened. The scientist quickly entered and punched the bottom button for the crater floor. In a few moments, the elevator chimed again and Julong stepped through the door into the hangar control room.

  He could see that he was too late to meet his visitor at the ship, and indeed the fellow was already there in the hangar directing many of his Korean workers. They had already closed the hangar doors, removed their suit helmets, and were using the transports to maneuver multiple containers around the rails of the mass driver and into one corner of the hangar. In fact, he saw that one of the transports had fallen over onto its side, and had spilled the contents of a container all over the hangar floor and onto the mass driver rails. A few of his workers were trying to manually tip the transport back onto its wheels.

  Julong determined that he needed to set a precedent, and stormed out of the control room onto the hangar floor. “Stop!” he yelled as he ran towards the group. “No one moves equipment without my direct authorization. You might have damaged the mass driver!”

  The scientist came to an abrupt halt and stared at the contents that had spilled from the container. “Guns? Rifles? Who brings guns on a spaceship?” he cried. “And are those hand grenades? Are you crazy?”

  Julong turned and faced the new visitor, and almost swallowed his last words. The new arrival was staring at him with cold black eyes that seemed almost soulless. The man was squat and built like a tank, with a prominent scar running from his ear to one side of his mouth. On the right upper arm of his suit was the sword and lightning bolt
insignia of the PLA Special Operations Forces.

  “Quiet, old fool,” the man said through gritted teeth. “I am in charge of this mission now. You and your men will do exactly as I say. I have the full authority of the Committee on this. The situation on Mars has changed once more. I am NCO Wong, but from now on, you and your men will address me as ‘Sir.’ You will follow all of my orders to the letter. You will provide me a list of the men who are going to be on this Mars mission by twenty-one hundred hours tonight. You will inform them that every day at oh-nine hundred they are to meet here in the hangar, fully suited, for three hours of weapons training out on the Moon’s surface. I can already see that they are incompetent,” he said, pointing at the scattered munitions, “and it will take me every day until we leave to get them into a modicum of preparedness. I wished to bring my own men for this mission, but I was overridden.”

  Julong stammered. “Three hours of training each day? We are already stretched to the limit trying to get ready for the mission. How am I to accomplish this?” As the man glared at him, the scientist added quietly, “Sir.”

  “Work them harder,” the special ops soldier stated. “The exercise will do them good. They’ve become weak in this meager gravity field. Why, they can’t even move that transport with three people,” he said as he pointed towards the Koreans who were still struggling to get the transport flipped back up. “Out of my way,” he commanded as he waved his arms at the workers.

  Julong watched as NCO Wong grabbed the transport and with a gigantic heave righted it. The transport crashed onto its wheels, kicking up Moon dust everywhere. “I am going to my quarters now,” the man said. “See to it that all of the arms are put back in the box and stacked in the corner with the rest of the shipment,” he ordered the scientist. “And make sure that none of you idiots shoot yourselves while you are at it!” he yelled at the workers.