The Attempt (The Martian Manifesto Book 1) Read online

  Paul walked out of the prison and blinked in the bright sunlight. A throng of paparazzi were snapping photos. Multiple microphones were thrust into his face, and a cacophony of voices bombarded him with questions.

  “Mr. Finkelstein, what do you have to say now that the aliens are proven to be real?”

  “Mr. Finkelstein, did you know that people are calling you a hero? There’s talk of giving you the Congressional Medal of Honor. What do you think of that?”

  “Mr. Finkelstein, the consortium on Mars seems to be holding, and they say they are working with alien technology for the benefit of all mankind. Are you planning on contacting them?”

  “Mr. Finkelstein, we understand that your lawyer obtained for you a one million dollar settlement for your false arrest. What are you going to do now?”

  Paul said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I think I’m going to go on my first real vacation,” he replied in a daze.

  # # #

  Paul hurtled along the road on the rented scooter, the wind whipping his hair. “What a glorious morning here in the Galapagos Islands,” he thought. “It’s my first day, and I can’t decide whether to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station or head to Tortuga Bay.”

  Distracted with his thoughts, Paul did not see the giant tortoise in the road as he careened around a turn. His scooter went up over the shell of the creature, sending him flying through the air. With a mighty crash, the scooter hit a tree, but luckily Paul fell sideways into some bushes which broke his fall. After a few moments of confusion, he managed to rise and dust himself off.

  Paul looked around and saw the tortoise disappear into the brush on the other side of the road. “Reptilian,” he hissed at the retreating creature. Ducking down into a crouch, he snuck across the road to follow the beast. Soon, the tortoise was traversing a beach and heading for the ocean. Paul continued to follow it.

  “I’ve never seen such a huge turtle before,” he mused. “It must have been created through DNA modification by the Reptilians.” Sneaking along behind the creature, Paul felt the sand suddenly give way. “A trap!” he screamed. Paul did not realize that he had fallen into a hole where the tortoise had laid its eggs.

  In his frantic efforts to escape, Paul caused the sand to cave in around him. A second later, a huge wave washed in from the ocean, swamping him. He felt himself sink deeper into the sand. “Help!” he sputtered. He sank even further and another wave covered his head. “I can’t believe it is going to end like this,” he thought. In a final act of defiance, he stuck his hand up high out of the water with his middle finger extended. “Damn you, Reptilians!” he thought.

  And at that moment, a firm hand grabbed Paul by the wrist and pulled him free. He fell onto his back on the sand, coughing out the salty water, and looked up. A young woman was standing there looking down at him. She was dressed all in purple. She was sporting purple eye shadow and purple lipstick, and she even had a purple streak in her hair.

  “Dude, what are you doing out here?” she said. “I saw you leave the road as I was driving by.”

  “Who are you?” Paul gasped, out of breath. “My name’s Paul.”

  “My name’s Celestia. Were you following that tortoise?” she asked as she looked out at the ocean.

  “Yes, I’m sure it’s the result of an alien experiment,” Paul coughed. “The aliens have been visiting Earth since the dawn of mankind, you know. There’s tons of proof.”

  “No Dude, you have it all wrong,” Celestia replied. “Unexplained things weren’t caused by aliens. It was the Atlanteans! I’ve made a study of it. The explanation for a lot of ancient artifacts is that the people of Atlantis created them.”

  Celestia reached down and helped Paul stand. She looked at him earnestly. “Seriously, you should come with me to see. I’m going to go see the Moai on Easter Island next.”

  “Those giant head statues?” Paul asked.

  “Yes. The ancients said that they walked to their spots on the beach. But it could only have been done by the anti-gravity rays of the Atlanteans, the same way that they helped the Egyptians lift the pyramid blocks. Then I’m going to go to Machu Picchu in Peru to see the Temple of the Sun. C’mon, follow me. It’ll be fun.”

  Star struck with this young woman, Paul walked next to her as they crossed the beach. “Can we go to Puma Punku in Bolivia after that? I’ve always wanted to see the huge stone blocks there. They say that the aliens helped the ancient people lift them.”

  “No, Dude! I told you it was the Atlanteans and their anti-gravity rays!”

  “Where do you think they got the anti-gravity rays? From the aliens!” he retorted.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous Paul,” Celestia snorted.

  “Well, I guess maybe we can agree to disagree,” Paul replied with a grin.

  “You know,” Celestia said frowning at him, “you really should be wearing purple if you’re going to be travelling with me. Purple is the color of travelers; it gives you protection. I think I have a spare purple shirt I can loan you in the car.”

  As Paul walked along with the young woman, a smile played upon his features. He reached over, and held hands with Celestia thinking, “Yes siree, these aliens definitely were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  THE END

  AFTERWORD

  Thank you for taking the time to read my novel. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. I have been a fan of science fiction since I was a child, and have always been a lover of sci-fi movies of all types.

  One of my friends and author, Ricky Sides, recently urged me to write a space opera novel. At around that same time, I was writing science fiction book reviews for the National Space Society web site, which you can find at http://www.nss.org/books.

  I realized that I was having a difficult time finding near future space novels that included recent space development activities. I decided to write a story which would include many of these endeavors. Examples include Bigelow which has, as of this writing, already tested space hotel modules in Earth orbit, Planetary Resources which is planning on mining asteroids for metals and water, the Mars One initiative which is trying to create a small colony on Mars, Virgin Galactic’s ship which will take tourists into space from Spaceport America in New Mexico, and Buzz Aldrin’s idea for a Mars Cycler. My own contribution to this would be that the cycler was a hollowed out asteroid that used the Bigelow hotel modules.

  As I thought about a plot for my novel, I was heavily influenced by the science fiction movies of my childhood, such as The Thing from Another World, Forbidden Planet and even The Crawling Eye. All of these included a monstrous alien of some type, and I was determined to create a very different one.

  Although it is highly unlikely that we will be able to create a space plane that can fly to a landing upon Mars due to its thin atmosphere, I have always enjoyed piloting stories. When I was in my twenties I took lessons and received my pilot’s license. Thus I envisioned a crisis in my novel which would require the astronauts to hand-fly a winged spaceship. I had heard about skip reentries which were done by the Russians and programmed into the Apollo craft, and so I wanted to bring that into the novel in a unique way. All inaccuracies, and I am sure there are many, are all my own.

  Although I am not very active on social media, you can find out more about me at http://www.amazon.com/author/boblee and http://www.google.com/+BobLee333.

  Stop by on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/boblee333 and let me know what you thought of my novel and what you would like to see in book two of The Martian Manifesto series. If you enjoyed my quirky sense of humor in this story, you might also like the novel I co-wrote with my friend, John Altson, called The Id from Eden. It is a satanic techno-thriller and available on Amazon and CreateSpace.

  Thank you again for taking the time to read my story. If you have a few moments, please consider giving it a review on Amazon.

  Bob Lee

  July, 2014

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  Bob Lee, The Attempt (The Martian Manifesto Book 1)