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Jon Batson - Author
Amazon
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Midnight Whistler Publishers
ISBN-10: 098937260X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 272
Copyright: Jan 30, 2012
ISBN-13: 9780989372602
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
There's something new on the face of Mars. Dr. Dana Wright wants to take a closer look but senate aide Tom Matthews remembers what it is.
When astronomer Dana Wright sees something on the surface of Mars she heads for NASA where she meets Tom Matthews, senate aide for the man who holds the pursestrings for NASA. Tom remembers all of his past lives and who was there with him, the same team throughout until he meets Dr. Wright, someone he has never encountered. Together they go to see what is on Mars, though Tom starts remembering why it was buried in the first place.
Excerpt
Dana Wright put on her fuzzy slippers and her favorite Sponge Bob PJs, filled her oversized “The Truth is Out There” mug with coffee and picked up her cane. She hobbled out the door of her double-wide on the outskirts of Pocatello, Idaho, to the shack on the other side of the yard, climbed into the jockey-chair and adjusted the telescope to focus on the planet Mars.
She was the winner of the American Astronomical Society’s major annual award for extraordinary service to astronomy, PhD in Physics and winner of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award and Newcomb Cleveland Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was an expert in Martian Studies and a noted advocate for women in science. She was in line to be the mission manager for the Mars Rover Mission – before the accident, that is.
“Come on, god of war!” she said to herself as she brought the red planet into focus. The Earth and Mars orbits were in alignment. This was the closest she was going to get for a long time to come.
Her father had the fascination before her ever since the first flyby in 1965 with the Mariner 4. He monitored the orbits of the Odyssey, the Express Orbiters, and cried with the fall of the stricken Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Dana took over in 2004 after college, following the adventures of the rovers, Spirit and Opportunity and the lander, Phoenix. There were others, landers, rovers, but nothing to produce what everyone was hoping for – and hoping against: proof of extraterrestrial life.
Then in 2008, as Dana was lying in a Pocatello hospital recovering from the effects of a drunk driver who severely mangled her left leg, Mars Phoenix shook enough soil through its fine mesh screen and into its oven to bake up samples in a search for water. Dana sued the driver and the settlement paid for a larger telescope with computerized auto-alignment. The enhanced hardware allowed her to keep a constant eye on the Red Planet.
“Valles Marineris,” sang Dana as she set her coffee cup down on the side table and used both arms to adjust herself in the chair. The Noctis Labyrinthus on the western edge of the Mariner Valley was typical of the kind of ground found at the exit site of a flow of water. That is, water, or ice or carbon-dioxide gas.
“Call me crazy,” muttered Dana to herself, squinting to get a bead on a wide spot thought to be caused at one time by flooding, “but this looks just like...”
She watched throughout the night, until Eos and Ganges Chasmata came into view to the West, believed to have been carved by flowing water. There stood the irrefutable proof.
It was early in the morning when a tremor went through the small shack, causing her coffee to ripple. She remembered the scene from Jurassic Park, when the tremor was seen in the coffee.
“But this is not Jurassic Park, it's Idaho!” she told herself. “There are no giant dinosaurs here, nor earthquakes – that's California.”
The ground stopped shaking and Dana returned to her telescope, bringing a wide plane into focus. The shaking was not only on her end, she could see that Mars was also experiencing some sort of event, the ground shaking, dust being redistributed. Though there was a three minute lag for the light to get to Earth, she could see that the Eos and Ganges were disappearing. As the dust rolled over the plains, other layers of the Martian landscape rose to meet the surface. She couldn't get a clear picture through the clouds of dust. Mars was not supposed to be tectonic, yet here it was: a Mars-quake, and she was a witness.
Without removing her eye from the scope, Dana picked up the remote and turned on the small television that occupied the table in the corner of the shack.
“...located in the area just off the Eastern Florida coast. We have here pictures sent via cell phone from an unidentified vessel said to be in those waters...”
Dana changed the channel.
“...moments ago. We do have an expert on earthquakes here right now. What? Oh! OK. Ladies and gentlemen, as soon as possible we will bring you...”
She hit the channel button again.
“...of a possible tsunami hitting the Florida coast. There is no way to predict the damage to be expected...”
Dana turned off the television. Yes, there had been an event on Earth, but now there was an event on Mars. She couldn't look away, though she couldn't see much through the dust clouds. The trembling had stopped where she was, though in the background, far away, car sirens and dogs were both howling at the moon. Then three minutes later, the trembling on Mars stopped. As the dust settled she was able to bring the new Martian landscape into focus.
Dana pressed her face against the eyepiece, first the right, then the left eye, then sat back, pale and frightened.
“Ho-ly shit!”
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