The God Experiment

Chapter No.29. Red Planet.

Chapter No.29. Red Planet.

Robert, Janet and James appeared in the JPL mission room. Both Jason, the administrator, and Ralph the astrophysicist were there along with an Indian woman, who appeared to be in her late forties.

"You seem to pop up here when things go really bad," Jason said.

"Now what?" Robert said.

"Our Mar's supply module's vessel is on course to Mars, but we haven't been able to make contact with it for the last forty-eight hours, and if we don't make contact it will burn up in Mars' atmosphere. The supplies that it carries are crucial to supply the Mars' Mission. Without it, they will have to abandoned Mars and return, but it's not really the optimate time for that."

"Hey, we're finally going to get to go to Mars," Janes exclaimed, smiling.

Robert gave him a smirk and turned to Jason. "Show us the vessel's course and velocity."

Jason gestured to the woman. "This is Uma Bharatiya, Mars Mission coordinator."

Uma brought up a course plot of the vessel. "The present course, assuming no change, would put it near Mars."

"How much time do we have before it hits Mar's atmosphere?"

"We estimate six hours, but it could be less if the retro rockets didn't fire. We have no way to verify that."

"I think we could take care of that, but I'm not sure how we'll get it to land on Mars correctly," Robert reacted.

"I think we can just slow it up before it enters Mar's atmosphere and then gently bring it down to the surface," James said.

Robert looked at him for a moment before turning back to Uma. "We'll need to know where the Mars' colony is located."

Uma displayed a map of Mars. "The colony is on Hellas Planitia," she said, pointing to what appeared to be a large crater on the southern hemisphere.

"Why there?"

"It has the highest atmospheric pressure on Mars."

"That crater is huge," James said. "The colony looks like a speck."

"The crater is around 2400 kilometers wide," Uma said. "The reason we chose it is because there are water sources there."

"Okay," Robert said. "We had better get cracking if we hope to get this done in time."

"Are you going to need space suits?" Ralph asked.

"No. We realized that we don't have to worry about being protected from space."

They just stared at him not knowing how to react to that outrageous claim.

The Steris family transported to the vicinity of Mars and began looking for the lost supply vessel.

Since a vacuum can not transmit sound, they had to communicate by mental telepathy.

"There it is," James said, pointing at a tiny speck that reflected the light of the Sun.

Robert looked over at it. "Okay, let's go see if we can slow it up before it enters Mars' atmosphere,"

They flew over to it and placed their hands on the front shield. With effort, they slowed its velocity enough to ease it into Mars' atmosphere.

"There's the Mars Colony," Robert said, pointing at a tiny speck in a culvert on a massive ancient crater.

They moved the vessel down to the surface and slowed it to an easy landing fifty meters away from a large domed structure, surrounded by six smaller domes connected by covered shafts.