MarsX1
MarsX Series
Book 1
D.W.
PATTERSON
Copyright © 2025 D.W. Patterson
All rights
reserved.
First
Printing – June, 2025
Future Chron
Publishing
Cover –
Copyright © 2025 D.W. Patterson
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No part of
this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of
review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
events are products of the author's imagination and should not be
construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Hard
Science Fiction – Old School
Human
Generated Content
To
Sarah
“It's
important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the
first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it's been
possible, and that window could be open for a long time - hopefully
it is - or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the
side of caution and do something now.”
― Elon
Musk
Chapter
1
He
had been too young to see the beginning, but now at the age of
thirteen he could see it continuing. St. Charles island in the
Caribbean Sea, where he had lived since the age of three, was lucky
to be near the orbital track of the Galaxy ships.
Whenever
a trans-Mars injection burn departure window opened, which was every
24 months and 20 days, in the sky above St. Charles for weeks, a ship
in its parking orbit intersects its departure plane, fires its
rockets producing nearly two-thousand tons of thrust for the nearly
ten-minute burn across the sky and rapidly departs causing a bright
trail in the evening twilight. Then another and another, almost
continuously, for two weeks until nearly two-thousand Galaxy-class
spaceships are on their way to the fourth planet.
Robert
Anderson was almost five feet tall now, slim with light brown hair.
He had watched the aerial show before, since his father had bought
him a telescope a couple of years previously. He would leave the
condominium and take the scope to the edge of the golf course and set
it up. The course at night was a dark area in a sea of lights and the
only place close by that he could even catch a glimpse of the sky
without light pollution. Luckily, his dad worked for the club and was
given an apartment on the course's edge.
If
the angle was just right, he could even see the body of the giant
spaceship reflecting in sunlight. Since the first “show” he had
read everything, he could about the Galaxy-class and the company that
had built it.
Built
by the MarsX company the upper stage of the rocket that Robert was
watching boost its way to Mars was two-hundred feet long and
thirty-three feet in diameter. Carrying almost two-hundred tons to
orbit or two-hundred passengers, it was designed to put those
payloads on the surface of Mars in six months.
Robert's
research had found that the company was only twenty years old but
that its predecessor was founded in 2000. And that it had already
sent twenty-thousand tons of machinery and supplies to Mars and even
now a machine on the surface was extracting oxygen and water from the
atmosphere and storing them for future use by arriving Galaxy ships.
The machine was also using some of the water it extracted and
combining it with atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Sabatier
process to produce methane. The nine rocket engines of a Galaxy ship
ran off of eighty percent oxygen and twenty percent methane. So, a
supply of fuel would already be available when a fleet arrived.
But
the most important part about this mission was that there would be
twenty people aboard one of the Galaxy ships and they would setup the
first base on the planet, spending a year and a half there before
returning on another six-month flight. Robert also knew that if
everything went well there would be another fleet launched while the
first crew was returning, and that new crew would be staying in a
permanent settlement on Mars.
It
was almost dark; the cool air of the evening was just settling across
the course. Robert decided to try and see one more ship fire its
rockets. He wasn't using the telescope but looking in the area he
expected. Then he saw a flash, but it wasn't like before, this one
flared up to a greater brilliance than before and then diminished
quickly.
After
watching until after dark he went back inside his house where his mom
and dad were sitting in the dim light of the living room with the
television on as they did almost every night after dinner. Their twin
easy chairs reclined with only the small lamp on the table between
providing light.
“Did
you see anything Robert?” asked his mom, pausing the TV.
“Yeah,
I saw several of the rocket's fire, and then I saw something unusual,”
he said.
“What's
that?” she asked.
“One
of the ships seemed to ignite its rockets and then it flared up
before going out,” said Robert.
“I
wonder what happened?” she said.
“Turn
the TV to that news channel,” said his dad.
His
mom changed the channel remotely and after a moment a “Breaking
News” alert appeared and the message that a MarsX rocket had
exploded in orbit scrolled across the screen.
“That
must have been what I saw,” said Robert.
“Oh
no,” said his mom.
They
watched a few more minutes, but no more details were given.
“Well,
let us finish our show, honey,” said his mom.
“Okay,
I'm going to my room,” said Robert.
His
mom started the TV again as Robert left for his room.
His
room was on the back side of the house on the second floor. He
entered and turned on the wall switch which powered the lamp on the
bedside table. His desk was at the side in front of the window that
faced the house next door. Another window in the adjoining wall
faced the golf course. That was where Robert sat many nights
thinking.
He
turned on his AI-assistant, called an Annie by most people, which
stood for ANI or Artificial Narrow Intelligence. There were newer
more powerful AI-assistants which emulated the human brain called
Emmies, but they were still too expensive for him. He asked it to
search for news about MarsX.
The
Annie returned with the latest news. A ship had exploded, and it
appeared to be the one carrying the crew members. MarsX was preparing
to make an announcement. Robert waited and read other reports as the
Annie displayed them. Then he watched the news announcement in which
MarsX confirmed that one of their ships had exploded as it fired its
rockets, and it did have the people aboard.
Robert
had heard enough, he folded his Annie, turned the light off and went
over to his window. From there he could look out onto the relative
darkness of the golf course. Because St. Charles was known for its
tourist trade, it was packed here near the ocean with hotels and
resorts and their many lights had come on since twilight, so the
seeing wasn't as good before. Only toward the zenith could he see
stars and imagine the ships somewhere up there still firing their
engines, heading into deep space, except for one.
Harold
Graham had grown up in east Texas near the border with Louisiana but
not near the Gulf. He was in the eighth grade, short, and a bit
plump. School kept him busy, but many of his thoughts were about what
was happening to the southwest of him on the coast. That's where
MarsX was launching its rockets and when they went up at night, which
they did quite often, he could see the long plume of flame,
especially with binoculars.
Harold
had watched them all, as the rockets boosted the Galaxy-class ships
into orbit where they would wait for the right time to leave for
Mars. He wasn't doing too good in school, but he could, and did, tell
people everything they needed to know about rocket boosters and
Galaxy-class spaceships. He had even figured out some of the math
needed to calculate orbits and trajectories, at least that had helped
him in math class.
Neither
his mom nor dad were interested in space, they thought it a waste of
time and money. His dad always ended up complaining about taxes even
though Harold pointed out that MarsX was a private company and what
government work it did was under contract and obtained by competitive
bids. But his dad always replied that no one knew what influence the
billionaire running the company had with the government, but he
doubted it was all as above board as Harold thought. So, Harold gave
up trying to convince him.
The
only problem having a mom and dad so uninterested in space was that
even though it was only a few hours' drive to see a launch in person;
they had no interest in taking him. Still, Harold had figured out a
way. He knew that MarsX was open for tours and sometimes that
included seeing a launch, all he had to do was write a letter to get
an invite. He could take a bus down and back if his parents weren't
interested.
Two
weeks later, Harold checked the mailbox on his way home from school.
A letter with a MarsX logo on it was addressed to him. Harold dropped
his book bag and tore into the letter. He was shaking a little by the
time he got it out of the envelope. They thanked him for his letter
and his interest in the company and that enclosed he would find an
all-day pass to the MarsX campus and an invitation to watch the
evening launch that day. He had two weeks to get ready for the trip.
He
couldn't believe it, now all he had to do was get there. He ran into
the small, white three-bedroom home to find his mom.
“Mom,
mom,” he yelled.
“In
here honey,” she called.
He
rushed through the living room to the back of the house and the
kitchen. This was where he usually found his mother and the room was
the core of the family's life together. All important decisions were
made in that room with the smell of whatever cake or pastry his
mother had recently baked vying for their attention. It was the
brightest room in the house.
“Mom,”
he said upon entering, “I got an invitation from MarsX to watch one
of their launches.”
“You
mean in person?” she asked.
“Yeah,
a VIP booth,” he said.
“I
don't know honey,” she said. “How are you going to get there,
your dad will be working, and I can't drive you.”
“I
can take the bus and back, the same day” he said.
“I
don't know if we have enough money for that, you know we spend
everything your dad makes,” she said.
“I
have money from my summer job mom,” he said.
“You'll
have to ask your dad when he gets home,” she said and then turned
to continue making dinner.
Harold
went out front to wait for his dad. Another hour went by, and his dad
drove up.
“Dad,”
yelled Harold as his father was climbing out of his old truck in his
work clothes which was usually a blue pullover with name tag, dirty
and greasy from a day's work at the garage.
“What
is it son?”
“Look,”
Harold said holding out the letter.
His
dad read the letter and handed it back.
“I
don't know son, I can't take off work to drive you,” he said.
“I
know dad and you won't have to, I can take the bus down and back,”
said Harold.
“That
might cost too much Harold,” said his father.
“I've
got the money dad, left over from my summer job.”
“I
don't know,” his father continued, walking toward their house.
“What did your mother say?”
“She
said to talk to you.”
“Well,
you'll have to call us every so often to make sure you're alright,”
said his dad.
“No
problem,” said Harold. “So, I can go?”
His
dad hesitated but when he looked at his son's eager face again, he
agreed.
Harold
ran into the house to tell his mother.
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