The speed of light is roughly one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. For the shipment to get to Mars in 5 days from when Mike activated the beacon it meant that the aliens must be located someplace in system, or in other words, inside the Sol system. Mike wanted to have a meeting with the aliens, but they wanted nothing to do with it. The ones that were local had been hiding for far too long to be called out of the shadows by this little kid that wanted some attention. Communication was made through a set of one-way transmissions using a communication device that sent a signal to another place and then waiting for a response. The time displacement suggested that they were on Earth someplace. Hiding. They had been around since the dawn of humankind so whatever they were doing was not going to be changed just because Mike wanted to meet up with them. The original plan had been reinstated at Mikes request.
Sebastian and the other abductees were moved to the underground encampment in Roswell and took up a diet supplemented by flux eggs provided by Jonathan. They were all regaining the vision that they once had if they had it in the first place.
Women who had been abducted never seemed to get the vision. Even if they were colorblind, which most of them were, they did not have the aptitude to see the colors that were manifested by flux materials like the men were. Each was granted some other form of gift, or power that seemed supernatural. A woman named Madam Vadoma Roma had the gift of communing with the dead. She creeped many of the other Roswell inhabitants who would have otherwise dismissed her ability as nonsense. Bringing her ability into the light was disturbing.
It was obvious that each wanted to be among the first to revisit another world and refresh their ability. Mike and the space X executives were the ones tasked with picking the crew that was to go to Mars. There was room for 6. Mike had to be one of them, and he would choose Lane and Todd to go with him. The space X team was still up in the air, but Mike trusted his two picks. The plan was to meet up with the aliens on the foothills of Olympus Mons when they landed. An exchange of information would take place that would expedite the adoption of Earth in the business of interplanetary trade. No one on Earth knew what the Earth would have to offer to beings that could travel vast distances throughout the galaxy, but he went along with the plan.
Work was completed on the Space X ship for the trip to Mars. The crew had been selected. The terraform ships had been designed and 3 of them were built minus the drive systems, fuel, and coolant that they needed to retrieve from Mars. Only the one Mars rocket ship was common knowledge. The terraform ships were hidden from the public to reduce the possibility of sabotage and maintain a semblance of proprietarily of intellectual property.
The plan was to travel to Mars in a 6-person rocket. Then to land and assess the cargo. Work on the base camp and prep the area for the terraforming ships. Load up what was needed to power the gravity drive systems and return with them to Earth.
Three automated habitats would be deployed prior to the manned rocket landing. All of which would be close to the cargo site on Olympus Mons.
The dilemma was that Mars is about 140 million miles away. There is no feasible way to get there and back the same year. The trip is expected to take 160 days, and land while the orbits are aligned. The return trip would have to wait until the interception date would place the two planets close again about 2 Earth years later.
The astronauts were loaded into the rocket and awaiting liftoff. The ship was provisioned with enough supplies to get the crew there safely, but the return trip was dependent upon each step going according to plan.
Space X crew opted for two Americans who were excellent pilots. Both were partially color blind like Sebastian in the hopes of future gains although both were women.
Paige Simpson was in her mid-forties. She was a combat medic in the Marines before getting drafted into the Space X crew.
Rebecca Shumway was in her early twenties. She is a pilot, an electrical engineer, and a physicist.
Todd Wells who ran security at the New York bank had become one of Mikes friends, and the head of security.
Sebastian Stanley was an original abductee born in 1740 who fought in the revolutionary war for the United States of America before getting abducted in 1790. He was one of two bank managers that traded off as their coworkers aged and retired. Both had been abducted in the 18th century.
Lane Mathers was in his early twenties. He was Mikes best friend, and coordinator of all things alien related.
Michael Lynn Bennett was twenty-two years old. He was the one called the prophet, and the only person known to have full vision.
...
Zero hour had arrived, and everything went off as planned. The rocket took off with an easterly trajectory to slingshot from the Earth toward the position where Mars would be sitting in one hundred sixty days. The engines were shut down and the solar panels deployed for the interplanetary power supply for the journey. The crew had just sent off their first broadcast from space to acknowledge that they were on course and looking good.
Sebastian was the first to get out of the bulky space suit and start stowing it in his cargo area.
“When do you think we should tell them?” Lane asked as he changed clothes.
“Tell who, what?” Paige asked.
Sebastian started stretching his muscles while the rest of the crew got in their street clothes put on.
“We are going to be sharing each other's company for just under the next two years.” Sebastian said. “There is some work to get done on Mars in about 161 days, and Mike needs to be there for that. We have a few decks of cards, but it’s hard to play cards in zero G.
Starting from about an hour ago our skeletons and bodies are starting to get weak for lack of gravity, and if you want to eat anything that we do not have you are screwed.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
That got a laugh from most of the people in the ship, but only four of them were privy to the events that would soon be unfolding.
“Our next rendezvous will be witnessed by the entire world as we meet up with Mars and look at the cargo that has been set there.” Sebastian said. “So, the question is whether we want to take this flight as planned or take this time to visit another planet in a system that is much further away.”
“What do you mean?” Rebecca asked. “In a book or something?”
“Oh no, young jedi.” Lane said. “What our friend Sebastian is talking about is the real next rendezvous. Tomorrow night we will get a visit from real live aliens.”
Rebecca and Paige looked at the men in the ship and tried to figure out what their game was.
Mike nodded and the rest of the people who knew the real plan did the same.
“We have decided to take a different journey.” Lane said excitedly. “We will be leaving this ship tomorrow night and come back to get some things taken care of on Mars as expected. The new question is whether you guys want to come with us or stay on this ship like you thought we were doing.”
“Bullshit.” Rebecca said as she looked for the catch line.
“That’s what I said at first.” Lane said. “But there are advantages to rapid travel. Maybe it’s time for you to expand your horizons.”
“What are you talking about?” Paige asked.
“In about 40 hours we are going to have a spaceship move up alongside this ship.” Mike said. “Either four of us, or six of us are going to climb aboard that ship and speed off to another world around another star. The question is, do you want to come along, or wait here for our return.”
“Are you being serious right now?” Paige asked.
Mike and the others nodded.
“I’m in if you are.” Rebecca affirmed.
Paige was unsure whether it was possible or not. She had seen some strange things in the past year and was willing to go along with something that she thought was impossible if it proved not to be.
“I’m in too then.” Paige said reluctantly.
“It is settled then.” Mike said.
Sebastian found the stowed communication device and affixed it to the radio controls.
“Six to beam up.” Lane said into the microphone after activating the radio. There was no immediate response.
...
Forty-one hours after Lane sent the message there was a huge ship approaching the rocket using an intercept vector. It moved into position next to the door they climbed through before starting the voyage to Mars. A universal docking boot was extended from the other ship and attached to the rocket. Everybody on the rocket ship was surprised by the size of the ship, and how easily it maneuvered next to the door. There were some muffled thudding and scraping sounds followed by a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Mike called out, causing everybody to laugh and easing the tension slightly.
Then the door opened and a sturdy looking bald man entered. He did not look alien other than his hands and eyes. Each of his hands had 6 fingers on them. His eyes were large, black, and shiny. He floated over to Mike and shook his hand as if he were meeting his idol for the first time.
“I am Rubin.” Rubin said. “I have been wanting to meet you for quite a while. Are you ready for an adventure?”
Rubin met the crew and shook each person's hands in turn with Sebastian being last.
“It has been a long-time brother.” he said just before he engaged the mind meld handshake with Sebastian. They were frozen in that pose for a long time. Rubin had unblinking eyes while Sebastian had his closed. The onlookers saw what appeared to be power drawn through the handshake and into Sebastian filling him up and changing his color to one that made him look more alive. When the handshake was released, Sebastian inhaled a deep breath before letting out a sigh.
“Thank you for that.” Sebastian said. “I have been so hungry for so long.”
“Let us get underway then, shall we?” Rubin said as he motioned for them to go through the doorway.
...
The ship that they entered was called Special Delivery. It was huge in comparison to anything that Earth had ever sent to space, but as they would come to understand it, very tiny for a cargo ship. It was a converted scout ship. It was squat, flat black, wide, and not very aerodynamic. It was already stocked for a journey much larger than the one they would be taking.
Only Rubin and Sebastian seemed like they were at home on the ship. They were comfortable and relaxed. The others sat in some sturdy chairs on the bridge of the ship.
Special Delivery had an artificial gravity that was exactly one G. Rubin explained the controls to the ship followed by a guided tour of the ship and an introduction to the method that it used to move through space.
The same artificial gravity system that made the ships inhabitants stand on the deck plating was channeled and angled by moving the flux fuel flow in the engines in a coordinated method that created an artificial gravity on the exterior of the ship that pulled the engines toward the distorted gravity zone. The engines were precise, and the fuel flow had to be measured and controlled according to mass. The onboard computers used a network of Coriolis mass flow meters and a historian to assimilate the controls of the pilot after initialization. There were no machines that could detect or sense the flux fuels for initialization. It was all done manually. Rubin explained how to get the right mix calibrated quickly even though only Rubin, Mike, and Sebastian could mix the fuel since they were the only ones that could see it for what it was. It worked as Jonathan had mentioned using the color pallet. The flow controllers to the engine controls had 3 windows with sight glasses and a prism for viewing the actual fuel. The background would be set up with the hue that was needed for the mass of the ship and its contents. Coolant would be added at a constant rate, and then fuel flow would be adjusted to make the right color in the sight glass to match the intended background. It was all quite simple except for the fact that Mike was color blind from birth and was shaky about how to mix colors to get the one you want. Sebastian was familiar with the controls but out of practice. His vision had improved since he had started eating Jonathan's enhanced eggs, but he still was not up to full and did not trust himself with the task.
After going through all the controls and moving a comfortable distance from the rocket that they arrived on, Rubin deftly brought the ship to one G forward thrust with the Flux Gravity drive system on the ship and it started forward smoothly. There was a moderate sensation of acceleration as the ships drive system accelerated. It only lasted a moment though, and the 1 G on the deck resumed its pull to seem like it was only downward force. Ruben explained that the coolant was compensating for the distortion, but it had a small lag. Rubin moved the controls to 2 G’s, then 3. Then 4 G’s. 5 G’s 6 G’s. He kept accelerating like that. The view on the huge monitor on the front of the ship showed them speeding up at an incredible rate, but the sensation of accelerating was only felt each time the rate of change was adjusted. When they had reached 12 G’s Rubin held his course as he made some corrections to the flow, and the computer automatically duplicated the commands and predicted flow for real heavy acceleration.
They continued at 12 G for several minutes while Rubin made some final adjustments with flow as he fine-tuned the parameters. He set up tuning parameters that worked on a principle like a PID controller. After a few setpoint changes and automated corrections he locked the program into Cascade function and pushed it to 144 G’s. The sensation of thrust only lasted a few moments as the coolant compensated. They blew by the earth like it wasn’t even moving as they flew toward Jiirdrian, which was the transit planet that coordinated the travel in this section of the milky way.
“How fast are we accelerating?” Lane asked.
“One G is 9.80665 meters per second squared. We are accelerating 144 G’s which is 1412 meters per second squared. The apparent speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. In just under 60 hours, we will be moving faster than the speed of light.” Rubin said.
Lane usually made a comment about the metric system that somehow seemed inappropriate in this moment, so he kept it to himself. Mike and Sebastian were expecting the comment. They shared a look and a smile.