One Giant Leap Read online

  RED VIRUS l0l

  Series

  ONE GIANT LEAP

  A Novel by

  KEITH MARTIN

  Copyright © 2018 Keith Martin

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1984007858

  ISBN-13: 978-1984007858

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this work to my son Joshua Martin, Army S.P.C.

  July 20, 1991  April 19, 2012

  He always trusted me to comfort him when he was scared and he told me about a vivid nightmare he had knowing I would calm his fears. God bless you Son, and know my love for you will never stop growing.

  At the time he was just twelve years old.

  It is from his dream that this saga has been developed.

  Also to my daughters, they helped to turn this nightmare around and make it into an adventurous bedtime story that we all shared over a long hard summer. Ashley you told me I should write… I trusted your vision of my future. Turn the page and enjoy the story you helped make happen.

  Shianne you will always be my Shinny Baby Girl. Thanks for helping to make this adventure a reality for all to read.

  They gave me the story that for me became a passion to write.

  And last but not least to my father and mother. By the time I was ten they had shown the family most of the United States calling our adventures camping. It was these vacations that gave me an eagerness for discovery; teaching me how to find the real meat and potatoes stories behind the lives of those we met. Without all the stories in my life none of this would have happened.

  God bless Mom. I told you I would turn this into a story for the whole world to enjoy.

  CONTENTS

  1 Life’s Little Grand Slams

  2 Earth in its Path

  3 The Wave

  4 The Race Begins

  5 Reality Starts Sinking In

  6 A Hole on the Moon

  7 Look What I Found

  8 A New Homecoming

  9 The New World Government

  10 Seeker

  11 Baby Steps

  12 A New Dawn Breaks

  13 It’s a Shi Blue Day

  14 Commander or Lab Rat?

  15 Breakfast Is Served

  16 Seek and Destroy

  17 Welcome to G-3 Airlines

  18 I’ve Got a Bone Story

  19 Hackett Finds Her Wings

  20 Mars Takes it Back

  21 A Man is Offered His Chair

  22 A Hole on Mars

  23 Blue Thunder

  24 One Less Thorn In His Side

  25 The Regal Invasion

  26 Let the Truth be Known

  27 Let’s Get Ready to Roll

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  1 Life’s Little Grand Slams

  “Hello, Otto Chisholm here. How can I help you?” He answered the ring at the ranch on the barn phone. He was checking on the water for the livestock in the barn and the corral. California was proving she could scorch the hide off a boot in mid-summer. The horses were drinking their fill and the chickens all walked around panting as they scratched away the blistering day not far from water. One hundred and six degrees and it was just six pm. He was looking forward to the cool mountain air of nightfall that would roll down from the mountaintops as soon as the sunset.

  “Dad; I need you to pay attention to me and do as I say. I’m calling Joshua next and he will be headed down to pick you up.”

  “I think he’s on the way down now Shianne!” He informed his youngest daughter. “What’s going on?” There was something in her voice that told him she was scared. “To pick me up? When did I join the Shuttle Squadron?” Her words only caused questions to fly through his mind as he tried to wrap his head around what she was saying to him.

  “Dad I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that there are dead men littering the ground here. New York got hit by something and I don’t know what it is but it’s killing all the men and I want you off this planet like now!”

  “Shianne stop kidding around. Do I look like a fell off the turnip truck on the way to market?” He figured she was trying to joke around with him to see if he would fall for it. Pulling the leg of a family member was used as a game at times in their clan. If she was playing now she was going into acting and forgetting rocket science for good. She had him feeling a bit scared.

  “Daddy please don’t argue, get to the house and turn on CNN and see it for yourself, I’m sure it will be all over the news any time now.” She shot back and her voice held no jesting at all.

  “Baby Girl, I’m hanging up and I’ll call you from the house.” Her tone said it all and he simply started moving. His daughter was calling to save his life, that part of the call was plane to hear.

  * * *

  It was a bright and calm Friday in New York’s Central Park. The warmth of the mid-summer sun brought out a large number of children and their parents to the park and many of them were moving toward the baseball field to enjoy the unseasonably perfect weather.

  The kids lined up and started to divide into teams readying themselves for the game that lay ahead. The lawns where freshly cut, and the air filled with the clean scent of the city after a summer shower. Victory was in the air. All the kids were out to feel the warmth of the sun on their faces on this amazing summer day and to play their hearts out.

  The date, June 27th 2056

  World population…. ten billion…. and still growing.

  * * *

  A light breeze moved across the park as taxi horns blared, planes overhead roared out their story of travel and the park filled with the sounds of life.

  The heart beat of the living city blended with the excited voices of the children. Thousands of sounds of metropolitan life blended to prove the city had a heart of its own… a voice that those who lived and grew up here know as the sound of their town.

  New York’s voice was so loud all within her reach felt its resonance to the core.

  People sat in the sun under the massive old shade trees enjoying the park with the view of life passing by.

  The mothers and fathers of the players took up their places on the sidelines as the teams parted and took to the field. This was no organized team competition; it was just families bring their little ones together to grow in the sun.

  The sounds of their parent’s enthusiastic shouts made her think she was witnessing a World Series big league game. Their joy was infectious and it spread to all in attendance. Visitors to the park were taking seats along the sidelines to watch the kids learning their national pastime.

  Otto made it to the house and went directly into the ranch office turning on the world news and turning up the sound as he took a seat at the computer desk. He woke the hard drives with the touch of his fingers on the keys and the information highway started to flow into his backcountry life. In seconds it was filling every screen in the room with separate reporters, all female, reporting on the attack that was killing all the men in the northeastern United States and Eastern Canada. Reports out of Eastern Canada and the entire Northern Eastern Seaboard of the United States streamed in, he switched channels twice and found the same news on every channel he checked. There were no programmed shows playing, no game shows rolling out gifts, no talk shows filled with banter. Just death filling the streets, planes falling from the skies and everything going to hell with a quickness.

  He checked his Sons schedule with Shuttle Mission Control.

  Otto’s Son, Joshua ‘Jackal’ Chisholm chose a carrier in the Army as a fighter pilot. At six feet two inches and two hundred pounds he was a man who could take charge and keep things under control. The Army noticed this right away and he advanced through the ranks like a rocket off the pad. Being a third generation warr
ior gave him an edge that came pre-sharpened by time and service.

  His men trusted him and would follow him through the gates of hell as he led the way, and he always led the way. His style was hands on and by the seat of his pants. Once assigned a mission he would go over Commands Mission Plan; then double-check everything to make sure it would work. Even if he felt the plan was flawed he took it. He just fixed it so that in the end the mission would be completed, and all objectives would be reached, targets destroyed, cargo delivered, men safely deployed and or returned to base with hostages rescued and in good shape.

  He soon earned the deserved title of Ace Pilot with his ability to fly past a jet’s design-capabilities then bringing it home safely after dispensing with the enemy. He improved and honed his skills fighting terror and defending his country. He was known as the best of the best. The enemy would clear the skies if they got wind of his approaching squadron. With sixteen long-range missile kills. Thirteen close-range defensive kills. Twelve air-to-air combat kills. Countless air to ground kills and targets destroyed. Untold missions completed to get personal out of sticky situations and Hostages out and on their way back home he proved himself a true warrior. And it was all confirmed in his Mission Records for all to see. His Dress Whites were splashed with ribbons and sashes and medals enough from most of the nations on Earth to convince any woman he was their man.

  With this information freely available to the militaries of the world, no one was foolish enough to think they could shoot him down…. at least no one still breathing.

  A faction of terror once placed a price on his head of two million cash. Dead or alive! He took this as a personal challenge, doing the footwork to generate a mission he wanted to see how determined they truly were. Once the CIA pinpointed their location using satellite surveillance the mission was approved. He flew in with a full squadron loaded for war. In perfect military formation they flew in to deal with the reward on his head. He ordered the Squadron to hold at fourth-five thousand feet. Saying he would. “Be right back.”

  As he peeled off sending the F-32 into a vertical dive that made his Co-pilot scream with excitement. “AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!” Then he started setting up the targets designated on his heads-up display being fed to him from a satellite in space tasked to this mission. He was watching men in a compound loading and unloading trucks and men in ranks were being drilled. The computer reported the presents of ninety-seven personal within the compound walls.

  He was carrying sixteen; two hundred pound, program guided bombs, he programmed sixteen ground targets to take out. Four would slam into the main building at the same time from all directions. At six thousand feet Joshua unloaded hells fury and pulled up knowing the reward on his head had just been canceled.

  As his ship ripped through the air gaining speed and altitude his rear seater pointed out the line of his brother warriors all in free-fall heading down to add their loads of death to this mission. Again and again the compound erupted with devastating explosions until it had been vaporized into nothing but shattered earth and a crater to show where the compound once stood. Mission success was not in question.

  His men teased him for burning up all that money from then on. He couldn’t live it down; it stuck to him like glue. They would ask for loans and call out to the club that he was buying a round for the house every time he walked in the door. It was a teasing he could take, he thanked God every day that it wasn’t for screwing up that he was teased. Because as he would sit and hear again of the mission as he was heralded a hero and a valiant warrior, He always gave credit to his Squadron for their part in the mission and he never paid for drinks. No on-base bartender would accept money from a true Ace Pilot. On base they were little more then the Gods of Old.

  When Untied States Space Command sent the offer to cross train him into the Space Shuttle Program, he simply signed up without a second thought. He signed up so quickly the Officer sent down to convince him to cross train didn’t even get to use the whole speech he had work up to convince Joshua to join.

  Then he called his father to inform him that his fighter was being traded in on a space shuttle. For the past two years he had put all his thoughts, all of his being into his new ships.

  For him this was the culmination of all his dreams; the atmosphere of the planet could no longer contain him.

  He was the first shuttle pilot on record to fly twenty missions, and he didn’t stop there. If he was asked to fly, he was going back into space, space was where he felt most at ease, he knew no petty car bomb could reach him up there.

  * * *

  Otto got on his Cell Phone knowing if his Son was in transit or on base on the Moon he would get through to him. “Come on Son.... times awasting.... pick up Joshua....”

  Professor Shianne Chisholm had gone to the park for a quiet lunch; she needed a break from the high level meetings she’d attended for the past eight days at Space Command Headquarters.

  One hundred and sixty scientists and Heads of State had gathered for these meetings on Monday. Today, the last day of the meetings, more then twelve hundred were in attendance and the meeting had to be re-located to a larger hall to accommodate them all.

  It being a beautiful sunny Tuesday, the only thing they could unanimously come to a decision on was to adjourn the meeting at noon and to resume on Wednesday morning. Half of the morning had been spent just moving the meeting and there was just not much time left in this day for any real work to get done. Shianne was amazed as she sat waiting for the hall to fill that morning and by 10:45 every seat was taken and the walls were lined with most of the greatest minds on Earth. Everyone with a reputation as the best in any field of the Aerospace Industries filled the hall. At10:55 the meeting was called off due to the line of scientist that circled the block four deep trying to get into this meeting. Word was out the Shianne Chisholm was turning the Aerospace Industries on their ear. Everyone wanted to be there to witness this happening and to be a part of it. Her years of work and her winning smile attached to the greatest mind in the industry had won the day. When it came to propelling a ship to ever-greater speeds no one could find the answers like she could.

  The subject of these meetings was to gather support and funding for the radically new propulsion system Shianne had invented for deep space flight. And there would be billions, perhaps trillions of dollars at stake just for the full scale testing. This funding agreement between countries and major corporations was mandatory for her plans to proceed to full-scale systems test.

  From the moment she began developing of this new propulsion system it seemed like a constant battle to bring these learned men and women into her camp.

  She knew her propulsion system would change life on Earth. Life on Earth would simply take a massive… fast… leap forward. She knew that in reality the human race had no choice but to move forward with her plan. It was either go forward or go nowhere using the existing systems.

  The days of blasting massive loads of fuel into the sky to deliver a small payload into orbit were over. It was her designs that now made it possible to fly out of the atmosphere instead of blasting through it. Her designs had given mankind the ability to construct stations without spending 90% of the budget on the delivery rocket. Like any plane her designs could fly Shuttles from a runway into space and return for another load without a major rebuild or strapped on power assist rockets.

  The answers to every question about deep space ever asked would soon be known as facts if she could secure this funding. “No more guessing at it, we can just go there and see it all first hand. Where ever we need to explore will be within our grasp in just months or a few years at the most in travel time.” Shianne told everyone she knew as she developed her system.

  At times she felt as if she were trying to educate the local horse traders on the values of rail and vehicle transportation and they just were not buying it.

  She knew she would succeed. Her strong will and convictions showed it was not an option for her to fail.
She worked for four years without a break on her design. She worked on it night and day and she didn’t think of anything else for days on end as she worked on the designs of the systems she would need to take mankind to the limits of speed.

  Her prototype had proven it would work. Changing space travel, as we know it and taking humans deeper into space than ever. “What human could ask for more?” She liked to say.

  Now she simply needed all the world governments to give her the funding to implement designs into full-scale research, development and in-orbit construction.

  She added up all the costs of building this one of a kind ship the size of a not too small city in orbit. It would break the banks of more than a few of the smaller countries across the planet. “What price could possibly be too high, to reach for… and touch the stars?” She preached to all. “Reaching for the stars for the first time will truly unite all people of the world in a common goal. The importance to us transcends all political and religious bounds. We can end the wars on this planet because we will all be working together as one.” She told everyone that would listen; her passion for her work was obvious for all to see.

  * * *

  At 11:00 on this beautiful day Shianne had her chance again to stand before the committee and address the hall. It was her fourth time at the podium in the past week. She wanted to make the most of it and was going to give them each something to think about.

  She was surprised by the change in attendance to this conference over the past four days. It seemed that as the information was being digested by those in attendance it was broadcast to others who would have a stake in this and now it was an all out rush to be a part of this as it happened. She was pleased because she stood before those holding the purse strings on the Aerospace industries.