Chapter 4: Mars

The spaceship got under way, and they headed off to Mars.

This Explorer ship was one of their newest at about 120m long and 60m at its widest. It looked like a flattened oblong. It had two liveable decks that were about 3m high with a meter crawl space between. Helm, food-prep, a sickbay, a rec-room and labs were on this deck.

Six bunkrooms were on the second deck, with perishable storage and a communal bathroom. The third deck was the biggest and housed the transporter that seated four of them. Oblong shaped doors opened and the bottom third of the 50m long by 30m wide transporter locked into the hull.

The sides of the transporter area were separated from the bay and pressurised. They housed large storage bays on either end and down the sides. The transporter was locked to the ship horizontally so they could access the bays to load and unload it.

They had to be suited up to enter the transporter bay on deck three, as it wasn’t pressurised to save on air requirements. The drive engines were housed in both ends of the ship, and the support equipment for them was mostly on either end of deck two.

Water bladders surrounded the inner, usable hull and acted as part of the radiation shield, the ships water and primary fuel along with the GE Cells that stored sufficient power to meet their requirements.

Transporters and small starships had at least one primary Rih drive at each end. They didn’t have to flip in space to decelerate unless the drive on that end had been damaged.

This ship had two engines on each end. They also had four small Ionic Drives, offset at ninety degrees to each other, towards each end. The Ionic Drive cones pivoted to provide manoeuvrability and course correction. The transporter also used hers to get off the ground, before the main drive was engaged.

The exotic partial shield generator (EP Shield) provided protection against space dust and debris when the ships were travelling at the higher speeds. The Gravity and Inertia Compensators were designed to maintain a 1g force no matter which way the transporter or spaceship faced or what speed it was doing.

A week after take-off they were getting ready to drop off the acceleration, as they had reached coasting speed. The ship seemed to be behaving well. So far, they hadn’t had any serious problems.

David and the crew were getting on okay. The crew member he seemed to get on best with was Carol. Carol was their electrician come fix-it person. She was a bit rough around the edges, but she was a good sport and had decided of the males on the crew, he was the pick.

She had propositioned him the first night aboard, and David wasn’t stupid enough to say no. She was fun in bed and out of it. She had a dry wit and a wicked laugh. She was about 168cm tall. She had short brown curly hair and a cute smile.

She wasn’t ugly by any means, but then she wasn’t as gorgeous as his Dana was. She told him after their first round of sex that she had a guy back home. Since she was going to ship out with four guys for four months, she would rather pick one partner for the trip. She liked him, and he was a good fuck. She felt safe being with him.

David decided that he could live with her assessment, as he liked her too. He’d found ever since he had put on the medallion and the ring that he was often horny, especially if he had been studying or working. He had been surprised how easy the navigation tests were.

He didn’t seem to have any problems picking up new knowledge, remembering things or with fixing anything, he put his mind too. He also suspected the new bling had helped heal his knee. He had worked out that the book was supposed to be a spell book for a ‘Maker Druid’.

He wasn’t sure what a Maker druid was, did they make things happen or did they make things? The diary didn’t really explain. The spells as such didn’t help, as they too were an eclectic group covering many things. Some were for controlling or influencing others, and some were for making or fixing things.

He didn’t know anything about who had owned the bling before him, as the book didn’t say. A cryptic note in the back of the book said, “Sorry, I couldn’t leave you a proper box, but these items should help you out.” It was signed, ‘Wizard Davin’.

He wondered who the hell this wizard was. He had no bloody idea what a wizard was supposed to do or the difference between a druid and a wizard. And what was in a proper box, if he had only been left part of one? He had been playing with some of the simpler spells.

He had also been doing the mental exercises the book recommended he do, to strengthen his abilities to perform and maintain spells and his health. He felt that some of these exercises and spells were why his knee was as good as new and he felt so healthy.

He had also noticed his ability to perform sexually had improved. He needed very little, if any, recovery time between the downs and ups. He had also found that he seemed to connect to his partners and knew what they wanted and was able to make it more enjoyable for them.

The girls had definitely seemed to enjoy his efforts. Carol had told him she was more than happy to join him in bed anytime he wanted her. More often than not, she just came and crawled in with him. So far, he’d found no reason to stop her.

They had at least put wider bunks in this ship, and someone had made sure his bunk was long enough for him. He liked going to sleep curled around Carol. Fred wasn’t too happy that Carol would only sleep with David and Adele had decided Lin was the guy to keep sweet, as she would be spending the most time with him anyway.

David had even tried a spell on Lin that was supposed to help a bloke’s staying power. Going by his and Adele’s contentment, either it had worked, or the bloke was already more than capable.

Darcy had amiably told Fred he was welcome to come visit him, but David wasn’t sure if Fred had taken Darcy up on offer.

Time would tell.

They had coasted along for the two weeks.

They were getting ready to swap engines to start slowing down to meet their orbital window for Mars. David and Carol were in their suits and going over the Transporter, making sure it was ship-shape, as they would need it in less than a week.

The drilling room, drilling rig, its GE cells and solar powered generator would come down in the first shipment. They were also loading the loaders and enough supplies for a week. They had a backup wind generator if they needed it. On a whim, David and put it on the transporter too.

David would double as their transporter pilot. Once the dome was up, he and Carol would return to the ship. The second shipment was to be the living dome pieces and basic requirements so they could live in the dome while they were drilling for water.

Then the rest of the food, water and the general crap people required making them at home was for the third trip. They would keep the transporter on the surface with them. Every week they would swap the two left on the ship to the surface, so they didn’t go nuts.

The dome formed a 20m hemisphere and was striped in solar cells designed to operate in the extremely cold atmosphere. They were also hoping to drill deep enough to find a geothermal source to run their other generator and heat the dome.

The dome was split into three floors. The top 13m of the dome would be used as the hydroponics area. The second 3.5m high floor would have sleeping, cooking and recreation areas around the rim. The bottom floor would be 4.5m high and had the entrances and the open storage areas.

The central 4m area would be open from the base floor to the top of the dome. Framework to support the floors above would also support the stairs and access walkway around this area to the two floors above.

The drilling rig would be set up in a special insulated octagonal room 6m high with 5m wide sides, which provided a 12m wide floor space. The rig would be folded back up and moved to dig the geothermal ducts. Long skinny tanks that could hold a total of 20,000 litres of water and the filtration and pumping system would be setup once the rig was removed.

A specially designed heater system would be mounted over the cased hole if they only found ice. The scientists believed the water source was about 200m below the surface. They also believed they could set up geothermal heating systems to assist energy collection and heating of the dome.

The rig room attached to the dome through a double air-locked set of doors to the dome. It had a sealed compartment that contained the electrical controls. The room had to have the air-evacuated when the small robotic loader was used to dump the debris from the drilling.

A single entry to the atmosphere was used for this purpose. Once the system was up and running, the drill rig would be pulled out, and the door would be sealed.

David and Carol finished getting the transporter loaded. It wouldn’t be super comfortable sleeping in the transport while the got the dome up. They would also have to eat the dehydrated meals, as the transporter wasn’t set up for living in.

But those are the joys of space.

David piloted the transporter down to the surface of Mars.

It was a desolate place. It reminded him of the Simpson Desert in parts, but it was a hell of a lot colder. His dad had taken him on a road trip when he was sixteen. He smiled to himself, it had been a hell of a trip, and he had learnt a lot in those two months.

They were landing in the Gale Crater, as that was where the scientists had pinpointed an aquifer. He knew Mars had an atmosphere, but it was thin, and he couldn’t breathe it, as it didn’t have enough oxygen in it or high enough pressure for him to survive. They would have to remain suited when on the surface.

It was summer where they were landing and the temperature during the day might actually get up above zero degrees Celsius. He knew it could easily drop to thirty to forty degrees below each night. The rotational day on Mars was close to Earth’s so their sleeping patterns shouldn’t be affected.

He hoped the new suits could handle the temperatures. They were thinner than the old ones and more flexible. The biggest thing to watch out for was sharp edges. Even though they were tough, they could still be cut and ripped if you fell down in the wrong place.

They would keep the gravity lower at ninety percent in the transport while building the dome. The crew hoped to have it up and functional inside a week. They had a special air filtration and production system that sucked in the air from outside.

A laser system broke down the carbon dioxide. The carbon oxides required, with the argon, oxygen and nitrogen were separated off. Then they were remixed in the correct percentages, with more nitrogen, water vapour and traces of other base elements to reconstitute Earth-like air.

Water was the key. They had been given three possible places to drill. They would use the auger on the loader to drill some pilot holes. Once they picked a spot, they could start building the dome. They could place the dome separate from the drill room, but it would be better if they could be joined.

David had studied the maps and the data and picked where to go down. Fred wanted to use one of the other spots, where it was a little flatter, but David told him that he preferred the site he had picked. If he needed to flatten the area for the dome, then he would do it. They only needed to flatten about thirty to forty square metres.

The others agreed with David. Once down and suited up, they exited the transporter and walked on Mars. They weren’t the first, but not many had been there before them. David still found it a thrill to be walking on Mars.

The crater was awesome from their point of view. It was 129km across with a mountain in the middle. They were at a low elevation, and their instruments indicated it was a balmy minus fifteen degrees and the sun was just over the horizon. David pinpointed the location he wanted to drill, and he and Fred set up the sonic magnetometers that had been designed for this expedition.

Mars doesn’t have the same types of magnetic fields as Earth, so they had to be recalibrated for each location. One part of the device injected a current into the ground and then a sonic wave. It compared the results and gave them the density and possible composition of the ground beneath them down to about 500m of accuracy.

If the water were down deeper, they would have to use the less portable device that was capable of going down 4km. The scientists believed they wouldn’t have to go this low in the crater. They had estimated the water source was between 180m to 300m, below the surface in the basin.

Frank and David looked at the results, and Frank said in surprise, “This is indicating that under this 30m thick basalt layer, is a huge cavern, and the water is liquid under a thin ice layer.”

“Even if we have to filter it, it should last the bigger dome they plan to put here for centuries or even longer with recycling. We should only have to dig down about 160m like they reckoned. Bloody amazing, they actually got it right.”

“I reckon with our drill it should take about fifteen to eighteen hours total in drilling. If we get to the basalt in two days and get the casings in, we should hit the water by dark on the third day. If we drill the top 160m without the room, we can clear the area faster.”

“We can plug it and then get the room and tanks setup while I do the basalt. You, other guys, can measure out and get the other dome started. We should have it at atmosphere by day four or five at the latest.”

David, Carol and Darcy agreed this was a plan and Frank relayed it to Lin. They got the loaders out and cleared the area for the drill and dome. They had to go slowly due to the dust they created in the low gravity, but it only took them a couple of hours.

To stop the dust being blowing into their equipment, they decided to change the plan and set up the drill room first and then the drill. David and Frank both felt it wouldn’t need to be shifted. Carol would drive the small loader while Frank would operate the drill.

The team erected the drill room and roofed it. They got the drill and its equipment in place. Frank set up the suckers and directed the tailings outside the room for Carol. They left the air-locks that accessed the surface open and propped the pipe up, so it made nice little mounds for Carol to collect.

They found by having the drill in the room, it kept the dust down and were happy with their start. Darcy and David got the rest of the equipment from the transporter emptied into the drill room. They both felt better having it out of the weather. They even decided to set the Wind generator up. A breeze had been blowing slow but steady all day.

The generator would keep the GE cells topped up overnight and provide extra power for the drill tomorrow. As the sun was setting, they parked the machines in the room and closed it up. They had to go back to the ship for the next load, and they decided they would all return.

They could load the transporter faster with four of them. The team were all delighted by how much they had achieved in the first day. They could have been spending days or even weeks finding the water but locating it right from the get go had them well ahead of schedule.

The spot David had picked had a compacted solid sedimentary layer that should support the dome and drill. It was relatively free of the loose dirt unlike lower in the valley where they had observed dust swirling in the breeze.

They happily filled Lin and Adele in on their day and enjoyed Adele’s cooking.

David wasn’t surprised to find Carol crawling into his bed that night.

The lady liked a good romp, and he was more than happy to accommodate her. He had been using magic all day and was bloody horny. He was surprised how many small spells had come in handy and made the day accident free and productive.

He had even used his magic to locate the water, but he didn’t tell the others this. He had decided he loved being a magician. He had no bloody idea how or why the spells worked, just that they did.

He happily flipped back the blanket and let Carol crawl over him. She stopped on the way, and he sighed happily when her hot little mouth engulfed his rock hard cock. He groaned appreciatively as she warmed DJ up. He was more than happy to be petted, licked and sucked on.

She didn’t play long and was soon crawling up him. When she seated herself over him and wiggled down, he happily pushed up into her warmth. He pulled her forward and sucked a tit into his mouth. She wasn’t big up top, but she had more than enough for him to play with.

She liked her tits being sucked as she fucked him and she gripped hard when he tweaked her nipples and sucked her hard. She must have been horny too, as she didn’t mess around and was soon smashing her hips into his. He met each thrust with one of his own and was a little surprised at how quickly she came.

She was shaking on him and moaning in no time. David rolled her over, spread her legs wide and lifted her hips to his as he fucked her to get his own release. DJ happily slid in and out of her as she shivered under him. She settled down a little, as he kept the strokes long and slow.

Once she started fucking him back, he increased the pace. He happily slammed his cock into her as she raised her hips and again she came much sooner than he expected. He joined her this time. He felt the endorphins flood his brain and sighed out in relief as the horniness abated.

He rocked into her as she shivered under him and was pleased that she enjoyed his efforts. He always got more satisfaction and relief, if he felt his partner was also satisfied. He crawled off her and snuggled her into his embrace.