Star One: Tycho City Survival Read Online Free

distance.
    While they
drove, it gave Mase time to think. He had been on the Moon for over seven years
without a return to Earth. He wasn’t close to his father and hadn’t spoken to
him in several years. However, he was close to his older brother who was a
captain in the marines.
    He tried to
speak with Phillip several times a month and had suggested that his older
brother consider coming up to Tycho City to live once he retired from the
marines later in the year. Phillip had promised that he would consider it. Mase
sincerely hoped his brother would take him up on his offer; it would be nice to
have some family around. Phillip was married and had two teenage children.
    Mase looked
out the Moon Buggy’s large viewport as they pulled up to the mass driver
complex. The mass driver was a long 2,500-foot rail that extended from the base
of the rim wall and up its steep side. Large circular electromagnets were
located every 100 feet, which accelerated the mass driver cargo pods to escape
velocity.
    A large metal
building, where the mass driver cargo pods were carefully loaded onto the rail,
covered the beginning of the mass driver. Once loaded, the electromagnetic
coils would be fired sequentially to accelerate the pods. Once a pod was
launched, the coils were recharged and the next pod put in place. The mass
driver could be fired once every twenty minutes. A massive solar panel array,
which spread out for several miles to one side of the mass driver complex,
furnished power to the facility.
    The buggy
pulled into a small, open airlock, which closed behind them. Mase climbed out
of the Moon Buggy and saw Jackson Pierce waiting for him in the small control
room for the vehicle bay. From the look on Jackson’s face, he knew the man wasn’t
happy. Something was definitely wrong; Mase knew he was going to hear bad news.
He went through a final set of airlocks and found Jackson waiting patiently on
the other side.
    “Commander, I’m
glad you could come out here,” Pierce began, relieved that Mase had taken the
time out of his busy schedule to come out to the mass driver. “We have some serious
problems that need to be addressed immediately.”
    “Linda said
you were concerned about the coils,” replied Mase, seeing the worry on Pierce’s
face. “Let’s go to your office and we can discuss the problem. I want to know
what your concerns are with the mass driver. If we have to, I will consider
shutting it down for repairs. Earth won’t like it, and we will get a lot of
flak from some of the companies who don’t receive their orders, but I don’t
want to damage the damn thing.”
    “I agree,” replied
Pierce, nodding his head emphatically. “We have a serious problem developing
that I fear could cause a catastrophic failure of the entire system.”
    Mase knew that
shutting down the mass driver would cause him a lot of headaches. Companies on
Earth would start screaming immediately for launches to be restarted. Senator
Farley would be up in arms, saying I told you so to his colleagues. Mase would
also be buried under a mountain of paperwork. If the mass driver was becoming
too dangerous to operate, Mase knew he would have no choice other than to shut
it down. Safety in all the operations on the Moon was paramount, and he
wouldn’t risk people’s lives just to satisfy the companies on Earth.
    “So, Pierce,
what exactly is wrong with the mass driver?”
    “I think you
will understand once I show you the results from the last few firings,” Jackson responded as he led Mase off toward his office.
    A few minutes
later, they reached Jackson’s office, which was set at one-half Earth gravity.
Due to the power limitations, that was the maximum available for the complex,
and only a few sections had the increased gravity. Most of the complex was kept
at one-quarter Earth gravity.
    Jackson took a seat behind his desk and waited as Mase sat down in a large, comfortable
chair just in front of him. He knew he was about to severely