THE MARTIANS.
Chapter Four.
September 8th. Yet another briefing session is about to start. Do you remember what I journaled earlier, how Mr. T thought U.S. officials knew something unusual was happening on Mars? Quite a few countries have at least tried to send ships to Mars. There were a lot of failures for one reason or another. Some missions were successful though. Now I’m sure the landing location and type of mission may have been a factor with regard to success or failure. You’ve seen the vids from all those rovers on Mars. Evidently there is more to the story. Let’s hear from Mr. T.
“The U.S. government has the location coordinates of the Mars base. A robotic rover was sent to Mars on the latest iteration of NASAs space launch system. The rover stood watch over the bug base for almost two months. Unfortunately, scanning quality across the spectrum was substandard, the transmitter barely functional. The bugs may have jammed the rover’s signal. Or there could have been interference because of base electronic activity.
“The enemy knew the rover was there, and monitoring. It would be hard to miss. Still, they just let it sit there. They didn’t seem to care. At times they even seemed to be taunting us. But they didn’t allow any overflights of their base.”
Mr. T brought up a grainy image of a bug waggling something at the rover and it looked like he was pumping his head up and down. “At this point, it would take us too long to mount a mission that could be a threat to them. It would take months for a conventional ship to reach Mars. By then it will all be over. Still, it’s probably not a coincidence that the rover went dark yesterday at 09:15.”
The bugs should be getting nervous. All those ships going dark at the same time surely rattled them.
Shockwave needs a precise location for the Mars base. The government has that information. But Mr. T hasn’t been able to wrangle the coordinates from them. It’s classified as “need to know.” And why would we need to have location information? The officials are aware we were behind BrightLight. That may not have sunk in yet. Or, they think a similar operation on Mars would be impossible. Actually, it’s probably all the gate keepers. It’s so hard to get through to someone who can actually make a quick decision.
Rock is right though. Better these walls to climb over than being jammed into a more direct chain of command. There isn’t time to become immersed in a conventional command structure, allow them to develop a complete understanding of our capabilities, and then utilize us effectively. We would lose the war.
Mars is next. But while we’re at it, we need to know a lot more about the Moon base. We don’t know the location of that base either. I’m not sure anyone does. Perhaps we should be more forthcoming about our ... capabilities. For sure, we need to talk to our general. Our general.
I haven’t been able to find out much about him other than he’s a special advisor to the President of the United States. He clearly has a good deal of influence. And Mr. T is on his s-loop. A little chit-chat with the general about Mars? Come on, put it on speaker. There you go.
General: “If we had to, we could get an armed ship to Mars in four months or so. Probably.”
Mr. T: “Shockwave can do better.”
General: “Shockwave. Clever name. How can ... Shockwave ... do better?”
Mr. T: “Remember all those bug ships that went away at 09:00 yesterday? It’s like that.”
General: “Mars is quite a hike.”
Mr. T: “Not for us.”
General: “Do tell. Let’s see what I can do about getting you some coordinates.”
***
*COMMUNAL: We recommend a minimum 50 megaton yield to accomplish the objective. The low atmospheric pressure on Mars will impact the blast effect. We have analyzed the base information provided to Mr. T by the general. (*LOCK. We may or may not have reviewed additional information sent by the rover to EDF-Intelisat-12 as well*). See our recommended coordinates for bomb placement which has been uploaded to shockwave.edf.gov. Bombs away!
***
Well, that’s interesting Communal. I didn’t know Shockwave had a website. When did Mr. T have time to put that together? I’ll pass this along right away. 50 megatons. I’m not sure they make them that big. My whole life seems to be one big multitask project these days. I should let Mr. T’s AI help more often. Sorry. I’m rambling. Still tired.
The Intelinet outlets have been given more latitude with what they can show. There has been a lot of footage of those bug ships flashing out of existence. The news guys have been playing up the special ops team involved in the carnage. Isn’t that something?
* FLASHNOTE. High Priority. To Mr. T, From Viz. We need a 50-megaton bomb. Communal has bomb placement information, which they forwarded to our secure website, www.shockwave.gov. *
I need to let him know about the concern that Rock and I shared. Well, Rock shared the concern with me. Oh, Mr. T just hung up. He’s been on his s-loop with some scientist friends while we wait for the general to call back. Here’s your opportunity Rock.
Rock is on task. “A nuclear device will use plutonium-239 or uranium-235. They are not naturally occurring elements. Well, not generally. If we port a bomb to Mars, the fissile material needed will probably not be available to the quantum realm for entanglement. The closest supply would be Earth. We just don’t know how material that doesn’t occur naturally would be transported from here to there. Viz and I were talking.”
Mr. T rubbed his chin. “That’s good forward-thinking you two. I thought of that myself and did a little back channel investigating. The rover on Mars near the base was equipped with a nuclear device. It
