19:55 (Universal Time)
Tuesday, December 23, 1975 ‘C’
Command bridge of the spaceship U.S.S. LIBERTY
In low polar orbit around Mars
Artist depiction of the floor of Valles Marineris, with a lander craft approaching.
‘’Orbit verified, sir. We are now in a stable polar orbit at an altitude of 230 kilometers.’’
‘’Thank you, Major.’’ replied James Mathison to his ship’s navigator, Major Jason Rockwell. He then switched on his intercom box to ‘ship-wide call’. ‘’Attention all hands, this is General Mathison speaking. I am happy to be able to tell you that we are now in a stable polar orbit around Mars. We can now start the second phase of our mission: observation from orbit and preparations for landing our surface teams.’’
Loud cheers of triumph resonated around the ship at that announcement by Mathison. Lilya Litvyak also cheered as she stood inside the belly observation promenade, a pressurized tube shaped like a doughnut situated on the underside of the saucer section and whose outer panels were made of a tough, transparent acrylic. She had gone to the observation promenade, along many other crewmembers, in order to observe Mars as the ship was placing itself in orbit. Now, more than ever, she was anxious to go down to the surface of Mars and be able to walk on the Red Planet, thus realizing a long-cherished dream.
When James Mathison arrived at his work office in the ship’s administrative section of Carrousel ‘A’, he found Senior Master Sergeant Fred Turner waiting for him and sitting in one of the jump seats lining the external wall of his office. Turner got up as soon as he saw Mathison approach and saluted him, with Mathison saluting him back.
‘’Sir, I would like to speak in private with you. It is about a question of crew assignment.’’
Mathison frowned, taken a bit by surprise by Turner’s demand: crew assignments had been decided and their lists published months ago. As a senior ranking enlisted man, Turner certainly had plenty of time to raise any problem before now.
‘’Very well, Senior Master Sergeant. Come in my office.’’
‘’Thank you, sir!’’
Both entered the small office, with Mathison sitting behind his work desk after offering a chair to Turner.
‘’So, Senior Master Sergeant Turner, what is it about exactly?’’
‘’It is about my own position as driver of Rover Number Three, sir: I wish to be assigned to another rover.’’
‘’Why?’’ asked Mathison, genuinely puzzled.
‘’Because I don’t want to serve under a Commie, sir. They killed my brother in Pearl Harbor.’’
Mathison’s jaw tightened at once, while anger flashed in his eyes. The designated commander of Rover Three was Colonel Lilya Litvyak, one of the most experienced astronauts aboard the ship.
‘’Senior Master Sergeant, you are aware that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the destruction of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, are you?’’
‘’I know, sir, but Colonel Litvyak is still a Commie and I refuse to have to obey her kind. I thus request to be reassigned to another rover, sir.’’
That was when Mathison let his anger burst in the open. Slamming one fist on his desk, he jumped on his feet and shouted at Turner, who stiffened in his chair.
‘’MISTER TURNER, YOU ARE A SENIOR NCO AND YOU ARE EXPECTED TO BOTH OBEY THE CHAIN OF COMMAND AND TO ENFORCE ITS ORDERS AND DIRECTIVES WITH THE PERSONNEL UNDER YOU. COLONEL LITVYAK MAY BE A FOREIGN OFFICER BUT I FULLY EXPECTED YOU TO OBEY HER AS YOUR ROVER COMMANDER. YOUR REQUEST FOR REASSIGNMENT TO ANOTHER ROVER IS DENIED! INSTEAD, YOU ARE AS OF NOW OFF THE SURFACE TEAM ROSTER AND WILL STAY ON THIS SHIP. NOW, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!’’
Turner paled on hearing those last words: to be part of the Mars surface team was supposed to be the crowning moment of his 28-year military career as a vehicle technician and operator. Now, he could fully expect to have a damning mark entered in his personnel file, something that was going to put a brutal stop to any chance of further promotions for him. He had truly expected Mathison to understand his point of view and sympathize with him on this: a good patriotic American was supposed to be against communism, no? Realizing that there was nothing he could do about Mathison’s decision, Turner got up and saluted, then walked out of the office, swearing mentally at his misfortune.
Still furious, Mathison sat back and did his best to calm himself down, then started thinking about how he was going to fill the hole in Rover Three’s crew he had just created. It was not as if he could call up a replacement rover driver from Earth and have him aboard in days. Also, that position called for a lot more than just basic military driving skills: that rover was a huge machine weighing over 120 tons when empty of fuel and rolled on no less than sixteen big wheels. That, allied with the harsh conditions and terrain of Mars, called for an experienced, specially trained person with good technical skills and a detailed knowledge of the rover’s systems. Such persons were not a dime a dozen on the LIBERTY. Switching on his computer, which was one of the most advanced and performing models available in 1975, but which would have made a computer user from 2020 laugh out in derision, he called up the crew roster of his ship and examined it to see if he had someone aboard who could take Turner’s place. He felt both relief and satisfaction when he found fairly quickly a possible replacement for Turner who was at least as qualified as him, but also had as a bonus a degree in mechanical engineering. Grabbing the receiver of his internal telephone set, he switched it to ‘ship-wide call’.
‘’Attention, please! Colonel Neil Armstrong and Colonel Lilya Litvyak are to report to the Commander’s office immediately. I say again: Colonel Neil Armstrong and Colonel Lilya Litvyak are to report to the Commander’s office immediately. Thank you!’’
With that done, Mathison started writing an incident report for the ship’s log, plus a letter of blame to be added to Turner’s personnel file.
Colonel Neil Armstrong, his second-in-command on the ship and also the designated surface team commander, showed up first at Mathison’s office, knocking on his door a mere two minutes later. Lilya Litvyak was not far behind, arriving a minute after Armstrong. Offering seats to both of them, Mathison then started speaking at a measured pace, knowing how all this could be seen by others later on.
‘’Colonel Armstrong, Colonel Litvyak, I called you to come here because I just had to deal with a delicate personnel matter concerning a member of the surface team, and more specifically the crew of Rover Number Three.’’
‘’Uh, don’t tell me that a female crewmember got pregnant, sir?’’ asked at once Armstrong. While Mathison smiled at that, he perfectly understood why Armstrong had immediately contemplated that possibility: to have a female member of the surface team who was pregnant on the surface of Mars would constitute a major headache for Armstrong, as a shuttlecraft would have to speedily come down from orbit to bring that woman back up to the ship. The confines of a cramped surface base on Mars with strictly limited medical facilities was no place for giving birth to a baby, especially if you considered the 37 percent gravity conditions at the surface and the danger from radiations.
‘’No, none of our female crewmembers got pregnant…yet! Knock on wood about that! What we just got was a case of terminal stupidity compounded with bigotry. In other words, one of the members of the crew of Rover Three, Senior Master Sergeant Turner, just asked to be reassigned to another rover and this because he refuses to serve under Colonel Litvyak.’’
Mathison noticed that Lilya did not show real surprise then, only some frustration. As for Armstrong, he nearly jumped out of his chair.
‘’WHAT? WHY, SIR?’’
‘’He gave as his reason the fact that his brother was killed in Pearl Harbor by the bomb that destroyed Honolulu. I told him that the Soviets had nothing to do with that, but he replied to that by saying that he didn’t want to serve under a Communist officer. I then told him that he was now off the crew list of the Mars surface team. His attitude and prejudices are unacceptable aboard this ship and he could have created a lot of problems if allowed to land on Mars with the rest of your crew.’’
‘’I fully agree with you on that, sir, but what about a replacement for him? Qualified rover drivers are not exactly plentiful around.’’
‘’I do have one possible replacement, but I haven’t yet contacted that person: I wanted to talk with both of you first.’’
‘’And who is that person, sir?’’
In response, Mathison pivoted his computer screen, so that both Armstrong and Litvyak could see the small picture which was part of the electronic page shown on the screen.
‘’Master Sergeant Denise Bateman. Her present position is as the crew chief for the onboard maintenance team in charge of servicing and maintaining the mechanical parts of our rovers. She has 28 years in the service as both a driver and a vehicle technician, is qualified on heavy all-terrain vehicles and has a degree in mechanical engineering, which she earned through part-time studies during her military career. She is also a true combat veteran who served during the Korean War, the Indochina War, the Palestinian Crisis and the East Europe War.’’
While Neil Armstrong nodded his head, favorably impressed, Lilya bent forward to better look at the picture on the screen.
‘’I have the impression that I already met her in the past, sir. Did she serve in Da Nang during the Indochina War?’’
Mathison reviewed quickly the information on the screen and nodded his head.
‘’Yes, she did! She was General Dows’ personal driver during both the Indochina War and the Palestinian Crisis.’’
Lilya couldn’t help smile while shaking her head at that.
‘’General, I was shot down during the Indochina War and brought to Da Nang as a prisoner of war after your navy fished me out of the South China Sea. I now remember that I saw Bateman there.’’
‘’Damn! I hope that she will not refuse to serve as your driver, Colonel?’’ said Mathison, now worried. Lilya shook her head in reply.
‘’I don’t think she will: in Da Nang, she was guarded but polite towards me. I believe that we should call her in right now, to see if she accepts this new position.’’
‘’My thoughts exactly, Colonel Litvyak.’’ replied Mathison while grabbing his telephone receiver.
‘’Your attention, please! Master Sergeant Denise Bateman is requested to come to the Commander’s office at once…’’
As they were waiting for Bateman to show up, Matheson looked questioningly at Lilya.
‘’Colonel Litvyak, you didn’t show surprise when I said that Turner asked to be transferred from under your command. May I ask why?’’
‘’Simply said, sir, I detected his antipathy towards me from day one but, while cold with me, he didn’t say or do anything disrespectful towards me, so I let it fly, as you Americans would say.’’
‘’You should have told me about his attitude earlier, Colonel: we could have dealt with this before arriving in Mars orbit.’’
‘’Maybe, sir, but this is an American ship with an American commander and I was still hoping that Turner’s attitude would eventually improve towards me. Besides, I have learned a long time ago that commanding is not a popularity contest. International solidarity and cooperation are what will make this mission a success, sir.’’
‘’Well said, Colonel!’’
Someone then knocked on his door, making Mathison twist his head and call up.
‘’Come in!’’
Denise Bateman slid open the door and entered, closing the door before saluting Mathison.
‘’Master Sergeant Denise Bateman, reporting as ordered, sir!’’
‘’At ease! Please take a seat, Master Sergeant.’’
Mathison eyed with interest the tall, well-shaped blonde as she sat down to the right of Armstrong. She really didn’t look like the age of 47 marked in her file and her chest looked quite firm, on top of being very generous, something made more evident by her close-fitting Space Corps interior uniform. Her face was that of a mature woman but without any wrinkles and she definitely still could easily attract men. If he had not just read her personnel file, Mathison would have given her around 35.
‘’You made it quick, Master Sergeant Bateman.’’
‘’My shift was over and I was at the bar, only sixty yards away, when you called for me, sir.’’
‘’I see! Well, it happens that we now have a vacancy for the post of driver and vehicle technician for our Rover Number Three and I am hoping that you would accept to fill that post.’’
Denise immediately grinned, while joy filled her.
‘’I am going to be able to go down to the surface of Mars? I absolutely accept, sir! May I ask what happened to Senior Master Sergeant Turner, who was the scheduled driver for Rover Number Three, sir?’’
‘’Let’s just say that there is a disciplinary matter concerning him that disqualified him for the job. Master Sergeant Bateman, do you have any objections to serving under Colonel Litvyak?’’
‘’Not at all, sir!’’
‘’Then, consider yourself transferred to the Mars surface team. Congratulation, Master Sergeant: you will soon be able to walk on Mars.’’
A wave of emotions washed over Denise on hearing those words. Getting up from her chair, she came to attention and saluted Mathison.
‘’Thank you very much, sir. Permission to dismiss?’’
‘’Permission granted, Master Sergeant. Colonel Armstrong and Colonel Litvyak will be able to brief you after this on your new position. You are all dismissed!’’
Bateman, along with Armstrong and Litvyak, then walked out of Mathison’s office. Once on the racetrack of Carrousel ‘A’, Neil Armstrong shook hands with Denise while smiling to her.
‘’Welcome to my team, Master Sergeant. How about celebrating your transfer with a drink?’’
‘’That sounds like a fine idea, sir.’’
The trio thus walked to the bar-lounge, situated some distance down the racetrack of Carrousel ‘A’, where they sat on high stools at the counter of the bar. Armstrong then made a sign to the barmaid on duty, Technical Sergeant Belinda Thiessen.
‘’Belinda, one beer on tap, please.’’
Thiessen smiled amiably to him while approaching the trio.
‘’I am sorry, Colonel, but our last keg of draft beer time-expired yesterday. We however have a selection of stronger beers in bottle which will still be good for eight to ten more months.’’
‘’Uh, what will happen when those bottled beers will become time-expired as well, Belinda?’’
‘’Then, we will open up our crates of the really good stuff: porter beers and the like, which have shelf lives of two years or more. Of course, we will still have a good selection of wines, spirits and liquors by then…if the crew doesn’t drink our reserves dry before we leave Mars orbit.’’
‘’That would probably happen on the MIR space station…if we had stocks of alcohol aboard.’’ said Lilya with good humor. ‘’On my part, I will have a glass of vodka, straight, Belinda.’’
‘’And you, Master Sergeant?’’
‘’I will have a German Beck beer, please.’’
‘’I will take a Beck as well.’’ added Armstrong. As the stewardess and barmaid prepared their drinks, he looked at Denise Bateman, who was sitting between him and Lilya Litvyak.
‘’So, Master Sergeant Bateman, how qualified are you on driving our rovers?’’
‘’I am fully certified and tested on them, sir. In fact, I was one of the drivers who helped test our first prototype rover in the Antarctic.’’
‘’Oh?! Then, how come that you were not selected at once as a rover driver for this Mars mission?’’
Denise’s smile faded partly as she bitterly remembered what had happened then, something that both Neil and Lilya noticed.
‘’What happened then was that I was told that my test results were inferior to those of the drivers who were subsequently designated as drivers for this mission, so they put me instead in charge of the onboard mechanical maintenance crew, sir.’’
‘’But you believe that you should have made the cut, right?’’ insisted Neil, making Denise nod her head once firmly.
‘’Damn right, sir!’’
‘’Were there other women test drivers in Antarctica, Master Sergeant?’’ asked Lilya, who was finding this kind of case eerily familiar to her, thanks to her own personal past experience in the Soviet Union.
‘’I was the only woman in the group, Colonel. In fact, there were only three men with me during those tests. The fourth designated driver, another man, was not part of the test program and was chosen from a reserve pool of drivers back in Vandenberg. However, I didn’t want to look like a sore loser, so I kept my mouth shut then instead of protesting.’’
Lilya and Neil exchanged a knowing glance, with Neil speaking in a low voice.
‘’I think that I am going to send a message to someone in Vandenberg, asking that someone to discretely check the results of those Antarctic tests. This definitely smells bad.’’
Denise felt much better on hearing those words: she may have ultimately won today this cherished position as a rover driver after all, but seeing the bastard who had cheated her getting exposed and disciplined would be sweet revenge indeed to her. Lilya raised her glass of vodka at that moment.
‘’Let’s drink to our new rover driver! Cheers!’’
‘’CHEERS!’’
08:11 (California Time)
Tuesday, January 6, 1976 ‘C’
Personnel Evaluation and Selection Section
United States Space Corps Headquarters, The Pentagon
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A.
Major Eric Turnbull had barely time to hang his winter coat and take place behind his work desk when his superior, Colonel James Soderbergh, entered his office without knocking first. Turnbull, who had been in a good mood this morning, thanks to a nice Christmas and New Year family vacation, felt sudden worry when he saw the hard expression on the face of Soderbergh. He nonetheless got up at attention and saluted him.
‘’Sir?’’
‘’I need you and Chief Master Sergeant Gorman to come with me: General Dows wants to see us.’’
‘’Uh, do you know why, sir?’’
Soderbergh froze for a moment while staring at Turnbull, then answered him tersely.
‘’No, but I bet that it is not to belatedly wish us a New Year. Put your service cap on, then we will collect Gorman.’’
Turnbull did as he was told and was soon following his colonel to the next-door office, where they found Chief Master Sergeant Vance Gorman about to pour himself a cup of coffee.
‘’Forget that coffee for the moment, Chief Gorman.’’ Said Soderbergh. ‘’We have to go see General Dows, pronto!’’
‘’Uh, yes sir!’’
The trio was soon walking along the wide corridors of the Pentagon, getting to the section containing the senior-most offices of the Space Corps and entering the anteroom of General Dows, where Soderbergh spoke to the civilian secretary working for Dows.
‘’Can you tell General Dows that Colonel Soderbergh is here as requested, along with Major Turnbull and Chief Master Sergeant Gorman?’’
‘’One moment, please!’’ replied the mature woman, who grabbed the receiver of her telephone and spoke briefly in it before looking back at Soderbergh. ‘’You may enter her office now, Colonel.’’
‘’Thank you, miss!’’
Bracing himself against what he expected by now to be some kind of bad news, Soderbergh opened the door of Ingrid Dows’ office and entered first, closely followed by Turnbull and Gorman. The colonel’s apprehensions solidified when he noticed the presence of a female captain from the Judge Advocate General’s office in the room, standing near a window. As for Ingrid Dows, she was sitting behind her work desk and harbored a cold expression. The three newcomers came to attention three paces in front of Ingrid’s desk and saluted her, to which she saluted back.
‘’Colonel Soderbergh, I must first tell you that you can relax: you have done nothing wrong as far as I know. However, Major Turnbull and Chief Master Sergeant Gorman have a few questions to answer.’’
Soderbergh understood that this was serious when Ingrid did not offer them seats, instead continuing while staring at Turnbull and Gorman.
‘’For the two of you, know that I received during the holiday season a report complaining about a possible irregularity which had been committed about a year ago. Do you remember the extensive field tests we made in Antarctica in order to certify our Mars rovers?’’
‘’Yes, I do, General.’’ replied Turnbull.
‘’And, following those field tests, four of our senior NCOs were selected by your personnel section as the designated drivers for the four rovers we intended to send to Mars. That selection was supposedly made based on the performance evaluation of the field test drivers, all of whom were very experienced drivers and heavy equipment operators. After receiving a complaint concerning that selection process, I took the liberty of personally reviewing the files and documents pertinent to the subject, files which were stored in your section. What I found pushed me into asking our provost marshal to do a quick investigation to confirm my suspicions. He completed that investigation yesterday and then presented me his findings. Now, you two gentlemen are here. Would you like to say something before I continue?’’
‘’General, I frankly don’t know what you are alluding to.’’ replied Turnbull, trying his best to look unfazed. Ingrid then focused on Gorman.
‘’And you, Chief Master Sergeant? Do you have anything to say to me?’’
‘’No, General: I also don’t know what you are referring to.’’
Ingrid took a deep breath, then opened a file on her desk and turned it around, so that Soderbergh could read it.
‘’If you may examine that file quickly, Colonel, we will then pass to the crux of this present business, which concerns charges of falsification of documents, forging of signatures, professional dishonesty and conduct unbecoming. Specifically, I am charging Major Turnbull and Chief Master Sergeant with altering the reports and evaluations concerning the performances of our test drivers involved in the Antarctica rover trials, in order to unjustly exclude one specific driver at the profit of another driver who had not even participated in those field trials. Well, that driver they tried to favor shot himself in the foot a few days ago and, as a result of his own stupidity and bigotry, has been relieved of his position as a rover driver by Brigadier General Mathison, on the U.S.S. LIBERTY. Senior Master Sergeant Fred Turner will thus stay aboard the LIBERTY instead of going down to the surface of Mars and will be disciplined by me once he is back on Earth. Captain Johansson, of the Space Corps’ JAG office, was put by me in charge of prosecuting this case. In the meantime, you two are both relieved of your present positions as of right now and can expect to face at the minimum disciplinary boards or even court martials.’’
‘’General, I must protest!’’ replied Gorman. ‘’I have served for 29 years now, showing dedication to duty during all those years. This must be a misunderstanding, General.’’
In response, Ingrid shook slowly her head while fixing Gorman in the eyes.
‘’There is no misunderstanding here when you erase a score and replace it with a new one, then try to imitate the signature of the Antarctica test evaluation officer, Chief Master Sergeant Gorman. All that to deny to a service member with 28 years of service, who also happen to be a combat veteran, a position she was fully qualified to fill.’’
Turnbull, who was now sweating, didn’t miss the murderous look that Colonel Soderbergh was now throwing at him.
09:46 (Universal Time)
Friday, January 9, 1976 ‘C’
Hangar of Lander/Rover Number Three
U.S.S. LIBERTY, in Mars low polar orbit
‘’Well, time to board and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime, ladies and gentlemen.’’
Giving the example, Lilya walked cautiously on the deck of the lander/rover hangar, so that her magnetized boot soles could keep a grip on the thin steel sheeting covering the deck. The hangar, like the rest of the ship except for its carrousels, was in zero-gravity condition, something that necessitated special precautions when moving around, especially if you were trying to load heavy objects inside a lander or shuttlecraft. Lilya and the nine other persons composing the crew of Lander/Rover Number Three, all wearing their spacesuits, entered via the lowered stern cargo ramp of the 36-meter-long craft and made their way forward along the vast cargo bay, heading for the cockpit and crew section in the nose. The first time that Lilya had seen a Mars lander/rover training mockup in Vandenberg, she had been stunned speechless by its size and most unusual design. For one thing, the name ‘lander/rover’ brought forward to the mind the picture of a sort of heavy ground vehicle carried by a spacecraft. What she had seen instead was a spacecraft that turned itself into a ground vehicle once on the surface of Mars. It had the shape of a huge, blunt arrowhead-shaped lifting-body aircraft with long wings and two wide keels along its underside. Those keels actually housed a total of sixteen large motorized wheels which were retracted inside the keels while in space or when flying through the atmosphere of Mars. Once near the surface, the wheels deployed out of the keels, permitting a rolling landing and turning the spacecraft into a large ground vehicle. The wings, made very large in order to provide at least some lift in the very thin atmosphere of Mars, which averaged only 0.6% of the density of Earth’s atmosphere, folded up and out of the way when on the ground or, like in this case, when stowed in a hangar.
The group was halfway down the eighteen-meter-long cargo bay when Swedish bio-chemist Agneta Enstrom pointed at three large cargo pallets and two cylindrical tanks occupying half of the volume of the cargo bay.
‘’Is this that famous Sabatier processing plant I heard so much about lately, Colonel?’’
Lilya stopped, imitated by the others, and nodded her head while pointing at one of the pallets, which carried a big, cube-like piece of machinery.
‘’This is indeed our Sabatier reactor, Agneta, a truly vital piece of equipment for our rover’s mission on Mars. By chemically combining carbon dioxide pumped from the Martian atmosphere with hydrogen from electrolyzed water, it will produce methane for us, which will then be liquified in that condenser and cooling unit on the next pallet. The third pallet supports an electrolytic separator which is going to split the water we will find in the North Pole region into hydrogen and oxygen. With these pieces of equipment, we will be able to refill at will our propellant tanks for our rocket engines, which burn a mixture of liquid oxygen and liquid methane. We will also be able to replenish our breathing oxygen as needed while producing drinking water from the water ice covering the North Pole of Mars. We will thus be nearly self-sufficient in terms of fuel for the next few months and will have nearly unlimited range around the polar cap region.’’
‘’I can hardly wait until I can drill my first ice carrots out of the polar cap.’’ said in an enthusiastic tone Gerald Proctor, a geologist specializing in the study of deep ice samples. Lieutenant Colonel Donald Slayton, Lilya’s copilot, gave a sarcastic look at Proctor.
‘’Most of the men I know prefer to drill something else than ice carrots, Gerald.’’
‘’No need to precise what they want to drill exactly, sir.’’ replied Denise Bateman, making the others either smile or giggle in amusement.
‘’Alright, kids: no dirty jokes please!’’ said Lilya. ‘’Now is the time to get ready for our mission.’’
With her crew obviously in a good mood, Lilya got to the airlock door at the forward end of the cargo bay but first activated the control mechanism of the big aft cargo ramp, closing it. Once the ramp was closed and firmly sealed, she opened the door of the airlock and entered it. Since the hangar was presently pressurized, she was able to open the door at the other end of the airlock. If the hangar had been in vacuum condition, then the pressure of the air inside the crew section would have made it impossible to open the airlock door, thus protecting the lander/rover from an accidental decompression. Her crew followed her inside the crew section, which had two deck levels, with Master Sergeant Jennifer Hamilton, their communications specialist, being th