Martian Power!

‘I wish they would put the power on tonight’ said Cassandra Guzak, a Handsome young lady in her mid 20’s her hands shook as she shivered violently beneath the woolen blanket her husband had just given her.

            ‘Don’t worry honey; I’m sure we’ll find a new power source soon but we cant keep the station running or else we risk a nuclear catastrophe. You know that the uranium has been completely depleted and we are running scarce on material’

            ‘Oh, come on Jonathan!’ she snapped ‘ it was my idea to shut down the reactor remember? I know about our problems. I just wish there was something we could do about It.’ her eyes glistened with hope and sparkled with love as she looked at her husband. A middle-aged man formal yet rugged looking, with stubble, unshaven from forty-eight hours of hard work. He sat closely opposite his wife and looted intently into her eyes, obviously searching.

            ‘What is it honey?’ asked Cassandra.

            ‘You know how I’m supposed to be in charge of research for the new power source? Well, I think there may be something on mars but all of our workers are searching for material on the moon.’

            ‘But don’t you remember Jonathan, the mars program was shut down years ago, nothing up there that would be able to aid the planet’ she questioned

            ‘As you said, that was years ago, technology has greatly improved, and from all my research, it appears the material just under the crust of mars’ surface has the potential to be harvested and treated. Also my research indicates that there is a possibility that more than four times the power than nuclear energy can be supplied from this potential new source.’

            Mrs Guzak looked on stunned at her husbands findings ‘so what do you intend to do about it, our resources have been stretched beyond breaking point.’ she questioned

            ‘I know that honey, that’s why I have decided I will go up there myself. I have resigned from my position and am funding this out of our savings, using old space technology, which was scraped years ago due to lack of funding, you remember the “ion engine” used back in the twenty-first century? Well, I have modified it in the past few months and am now able to, according to my calculations, get to mars in no more than a couple of weeks… ’ His voice trailed off as he saw his wife’s eyes begin to swell up with tears. She started to cry because she realised he might not be coming back.

            ‘When do you leave?’ she sobbed

            ‘Tomorrow morning’ he answered as he embraced her. she continued to cry

The following morning Jonathan placed his final bag into the space craft, a small circular one person capsule with enough room for his mining and research equipment and food and water rations consisting of dehydrated food pills and water tablets engineered to swell at first contact with human gastric acids.

Jonathan sat in his little capsule just after hissing his wife goodbye, as he savoured the moment of their possibly final embrace he took time to reflect on just how perfect her eyes where when looking from behind her thin wire rimmed glasses and how the sun reflected from her flowing brown hair. He only then realised how much he would miss her.

it was a bitter sweet moment for Cassandra as she know the risks she had of losing her husband but she also believed the fete of the world was in his hands. She watched as her beloved husband waved goodbye and launched his space ball into the upper atmosphere. As he disappeared through a cloud she fell to her knees and started to cry. All she said was “please, don’t fail. And come back!”

Jonathan looks down as he draws further away from the planet trying to take in the view of the world slowly disappearing behind him as he activates the computer to put him into suspended animation.

The ship is a circular object with power thrusters on sixteen different sides. It also contains the most up-to-date computer analysis and repair mechanisms.

After what seemed like a night, when in fact it was 15 days, Jonathan arrived on mars. He landed right on top of an old abandoned military research center, from the early twenty second century. He looked around and saw a Russian flag, the world power of that era. He looked on in disgust as he saw that the Russians had knocked over an American flag and staked their flag right into the heart of the American one. After a few moments of trying to comprehend what had happened here he walked up to the Russian flag tore it down and continued to place the Australian flag right where the Russian and American flags once were. The place was desolate and baron, with what looked like, shrapnel from a great battle.

            “Beep beep” he jumped as he heard the reminder go off. as he read it he noticed a holographic message from his wife. as he watched it he saw in the background the reason he was there… while he had made a major discovery in the historic sense of the word, he hadn’t completed his quest.

He ran as quickly as he could back to his little spacecraft and climbed inside looking for the equipment needed to begin the drilling process. After searching for what seemed like hours, and yet was only minutes he re-emerged from his little pod and stepped onto the dusty desolate planet. He noticed as he began to set up the laser drill that his footsteps had been covered up as the wind began to pick up. As he began to drill the laser beam was continually interrupted but specks of red dust, and could not cut through the crust of the red planet.

Aggravated and confused Jonathan was lost in a world of thought, disbelief and constant doubt “what if I’m wrong, what if I cant find a new energy source” the questions ran through his head. The scientist in him told him to continue on, yet the human only wanted to give up.

Needing a new source of inspiration he reviewed the message he saw from his wife earlier. He sat and listened amassment as he heard what she said.

“Hello Jonathan, it’s been two weeks now and I still haven’t heard from you, I really hope you are alright. When approached by some of your old colleagues they asked where you had gone, I told them what you had told me and they said if you believe it, it was worth a try. There are funds here on earth waiting for you to come back with the results. Please honey winter is beginning to settle in and it is getting increasingly cold. I have done research into the effects of running the power station on such little material if it continues much longer, and it could be catastrophic! I love you. Please. Come home soon”.

With that Jonathan began to wonder how he could drill through the surface with his laser equipment as he realised how much he missed his wife and wanted to go home. after contemplating how he should go about drilling, and decided to search through the research lab looking for some of their equipment to see if he could use that. his technology was so ‘advanced’ that it didn’t work on these dusty planes.

after following the main corridor he found a door in the end wall. it was a winding path downstairs into a basement. At the bottom of this basement he found book covered in red dust. he lifted the book and blew the red dust off gently and read the title “drilling manual”. in amazement he looked around and saw “relics” from the twentieth century. after scanning the Manuel he found the machine which best fit descriptions of the book. this new drill was red, like the planet. covered with dust and the drill bit was made of pure sparkling diamond. after locating a lift he took the drill upstairs and outside.  the wind had slowed dramatically now, and everything was in a calm.

he opened the manual and re-read how to operate the drill.  As he turned on this nuclear dinosaur he looked on in amazement as it cut straight through the crust of the surface. Jonathan began to wonder about who was the truly technologically advanced. after drilling through the surface he walked to the space craft and proceeded to dump everything in it. jonathans muscles began to burn as he realised just how much walking, running, and just how busy he had been. Finally he pulled out a box made of titanium alloy and began to fill it with the ore he had come to obtain.

As he climbed into his spacecraft and punched in the co-ordinates for home .he noticed the dust starting to get unsettled. the door closed and the capsule began to take off. as he proceeded he noticed the research base he was just in begin to be enveloped by a huge dust storm. “Glad I wasn’t in that” he thought to himself. as the space craft began to penetrate the upper atmosphere at its escape velocity he looked back to see the severity of the dust storm that had engulfed over half the planet.

by this time he was growing drowsy as he was entering suspended animation for his journey back to earth.

Cassandra ran out to her landing platform as she saw jonathans space craft come in for one of the softest landings she had ever seen. his new prototype space craft was a complete success and his engine modifications had performed flawlessly, she looked on in amazement as her half dazed half dead husband crawled out of his space ship, his helmet falling from one hand and the other clutching a one cubic meter titanium box close to his heart. He proceeded to walk up to her, handed her the box and passed out.

After being in a coma for over 2 months Jonathan finally regained consciousness. as he weakly looked around  he realised it was late at night, and everything had power.

“I did it” was all he could say.