Chapter 32

MSDF Peake, April 6, 2163
Martian Air Space

“How are we doing Gene?” asked mission controller Charlie Bassett.

“On time, on target,” said Gene Cernan. He was worried that he hadn’t heard from Alan yet, but Pandora assured him Alan was nearby and paying attention.

“What is going on out there?” asked a controller who was monitoring the engines.

“Don’t worry about what is going on unless it has an N-52 engine strapped to its ass,” said Carl White, the Chief Field engineer.

“There’s fighters everywhere out there.”

“Focus on your job!” said Carl.

“Thirty seconds to shatter,” said Gene.

“Roger!” Carl clicked his microphone and called out, “Thirty seconds! Get everyone inside!” There was always someone finding some nut to tighten, some screw to turn just so they could stay out and watch the most exciting portion of this operation. At one hundred miles over the Martian surface, they would force the N-52 engines into an unbalanced configuration. The unbalanced engines will cause the moon to vibrate, and the crystalline structure of the moon will be overtaxed, and it will suddenly snap into basketball size pieces.

The ice pieces should stay in a nice tight group and flow into the crater. The idea is to keep the shattered ice in a tight group that will end up in the Jezero crater and not scatter over Mars and possibly hit the city of Perseverance. There were a few strategically placed shaped charges that will be set off in a precise series to help.

“Ten seconds,” said Gene.

Carl hit a button that caused alarm horns to ring on every radio on the network. Everyone that wasn’t desperately trying to wrestle control of the Polnoye Resheniye from Radmir Kovalyov were glued to their view screens to watch the show.

With a series of precisely timed bangs, the sphere of ice suddenly became a mass of crushed ice that was plunging from the sky. The engines tried to fly in different directions, carrying their 10 foot long engine stand legs with them, but being freed from the ice they no longer had any reaction mass to convert, and the engines shut down and joined the broken ice in its plunge to Jezero crater. The moonlet shattered perfectly, and the ice crystals stayed in a nice, tight group as they plunged into the Martian atmosphere.

“Gentlemen!” called Carl White over the radio. “It’s Miller time!”

The Polnoye Resheniye wheeled crazily around them, making the crewmen and the marines nauseous as they floated in the careening ship, but Alan and Radmir glared at each other. Radmir pulled his knife also, and the men faced each other, both carrying the large, archaic, Eastern Bloc hunting knives. Radmir swung at Alan like he did in the past, but Alan wasn’t a tied up and helpless prisoner this time. Alan blocked Radmir’s attack with his left arm and brought his knife up, but flipped it so he was holding it by the blade. With a swing, he hit Kovalyov in the head with the heavy handle of the big knife so hard it knocked the crazed Eastern Bloc captain’s head into the helm control council.

It all came back to Alan, the beatings, stabbing, rapes and the mind numbing torture, and this man was there ordering his torturers to inflict more pain but to ensure that Alan remained alive. Alan even remembered the title that Kovalyov gave him. “It’s Rukovoditel Krasnyy to you,” shouted Alan and he pulled Radmir Kovalyov out of the helmsman’s seat and shouted to his marines, “Tie him up somewhere then strap in.”

“What about these guys?” asked a marine who pointed at the two remaining members of the Polnoye Resheniye bridge crew.

“Fuck ‘em.” Alan strapped himself into the helmsman’s seat and the computer terminal showed that they were tumbling end over end into Mars’ atmosphere. “What do I do Ed?”

“Break the roll,” said Ed. “You need to use your bionic.” Alan flipped up his eye patch and he could see a holographic depiction of the Polnoye Resheniye hovering before him. “Engage the engines,” said Ed, and arrows appeared and pointed to the levers and switches that Alan had to use. The thrusters were not in the back of the ship like normal ships. All the thrusters were in the belly and backbone of the ship, and they had vectoring thrust nozzles. When not in use, they folded up into the body so there was no radar return. Alan aligned the forward two belly nozzles straight down, the two aft nozzles he pointed straight up and opened the throttle. It seemed to take forever, but the roll stopped.

“Fool! You are caught in Mars’ gravity!” shouted Radmir Kovalyov.