Chapter 100

“Hey Zeke, we’re done and heading back to your place.”

“Okay, I’m at Mt Sharp. I just have to do the incantations. Do you have a magical go word for me?” he joked.

“Sure, Alakazam, works for me,” Carly giggled.

“Alakazam?” questioned Zeke.

He then stiffened as he felt as if a huge ball of magical energy was forming in his chest and abdomen. When he couldn’t hold it anymore, he released it into the pole and the crystals above him.

More energy poured from him as he walked around the pole while touching it. He directed the energy and the attached incantations at each of the other eleven globes. He felt each one activate.

He looked up as the shield above him grew and grew. It made him think of circular magnetic lines around a cable. It didn’t go up first. It went out wide and down in a shallow arc.

His shield touched the shield from Aeolis Mons. Lines of force now radiated around the two globes as if they were side-by-side cables. The shield expanded even wider and faster. He could feel the other shields expand.

He knew when the two near his place touched and joined. Then, the two near Central City joined. They both expanded and met the next nearest shield beside them to the south. They expanded again and joined to the smaller shield that separated them.

Then they joined with the next two shields as they both raced around the rim of the crater to go north. They had grown big enough to latch onto the shield that was over his head.

He turned to the north and watched as the huge shield curved down and just touched the next two smaller ones and engulfed them. At last, they reached the lowest shield to the north.

With all twelve globes now linked, the shield did its final expansion above and out from him and then settled into place over the crater. Zeke let out his senses. He knew that it had capped out at 15km.

Interestingly, the peak wasn’t directly over him. It had moved some 20km to be slightly east of south. It still pulsed out to the rim and back as if the globes were pulsing an AC current at a high frequency to form the shield.

It also now had a diameter of 225km. While it only expanded as far as 25km past the wall to the northwest, it went as far as 50km to the southeast because of the two extra globes on that side. Zeke was also sure that their inclusion had made the difference of the shields all joining or not.

He wondered how long it would take before the air pressure rose and before it was breathable.

Zeke was still admiring his handwork, when about ten minutes later, his Pedz started beeping.

“What’s up?”

“They said to look up and slightly to the north of east. The comet is entering the higher atmosphere. They said it had broken up a little and now included a shower of small to medium meteorites, but the main comet still accounts for eighty percent of the mass,” his mother informed him.

Zeke looked and stared, as the clear sky above him sparkled as small meteorites hit his shield and disintegrated. Only minutes later, the big one hit. Its boom reverberated around the crater walls, and the ground trembled but not fiercely.

The energy released looked like expanding yellow, orange, and red halos as it shot down the shield. When it reached the outer globes, they shone like miniature suns. The globe above him bathed him in brilliant light for several minutes before it dimmed a little.

He could hear smaller booms as more of the asteroid destroyed itself on his shield. Some of the pieces had bounced and came down on the long, shallowly curved sides of the shield, only to be dismantled by it.

While the dust in the stratosphere got a bit thicker from what was ejected into it, the light show at the time was spectacular.

Zeke watched for a good fifteen minutes before the show petered out.

What happened next had him opening his comms.

“Hey, Mum?”

“Yes, Zeke?”

“Can you remember what you promised if it ever rained on Mars?”

Pat laughed, “I promised a lot of things.”

“Well, you better start remembering because you have to pay up.”

“What?” she screeched.

Zeke blinked back to the house.

Carly and Lindsay had gotten back before the light show and stood in the yard to watch it with Pat and Vic. Zeke got them all to put their helmets on and blinked back to Mt Sharp with all of them.

They were amazed to see that the ground was wet. They also realised the air was clear and visibility in the crater was amazing.

“How can this be? Water can’t stay liquid in our atmosphere?” Vic cried as he bent down to scoop up the damp regolith.

“Well, when you add most of the mass of a 120m long by 90m wide comet and a lot of heat to the atmosphere under the shield, it can make a difference. The shield also absorbed mass from the outside air as it expanded, and during the meteor shower. Look at your stats for the atmosphere in here.”