Stand by for Mars! by Carey Rockwell (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📖

to make sure there isn't anyone near the ship when we blast off. The rocket exhaust is powerful enough to blow a man two hundred feet, to say nothing of burning him to death."

"You mean, sir—" began Tom, not daring to hope.

"Of course, Corbett," smiled Strong. "Take your stations for blast-off. We raise ship as soon as we get orbital clearance from spaceport control!"

Without waiting for further orders, the three boys scurried to their stations.

Soon the muffled whine of the energizing pumps on the power deck began to ring through the ship, along with the steady beep of the radar scanner on the radar bridge. Tom checked the maze of gauges and dials on the control board. Air locks, hatches, oxygen supply, circulating system, circuits, and feeds. In five minutes the two-hundred-foot shining steel hull was a living thing as her rocket motors purred, warming up for the initial thrust.

Tom made a last sweeping check of the complicated board and turned to Captain Strong who stood to one side watching.

"Ship ready to blast off, sir," he announced. "Shall I check stations and proceed to raise ship?"

"Carry on, Cadet Corbett," Strong replied. "Log yourself in as skipper with me along as supercargo. I'll ride in the second pilot's chair."

Tom snapped a sharp salute and added vocally, "Aye, aye, sir!"

He turned back to the control board, strapped himself into the command pilot's seat and opened the circuit to the spaceport control tower.

"Rocket cruiser Polaris to spaceport control," he droned into the microphone. "Check in!"

"Spaceport control to Polaris," the voice of the tower operator replied. "You are cleared for blast-off in two minutes. Take out—orbit 75 ... repeat ... 75...."

"Polaris to spaceport control. Orders received and understood. End transmission!"

Tom then turned his attention to the station check.

"Control deck to radar deck. Check in."

"Radar deck, aye! Ready to raise ship." Roger's voice was relaxed, easy.

Tom turned to the board to adjust the teleceiver screen for a clear picture of the stern of the ship. Gradually it came up in as sharp detail as if he had been standing on the ground.

He checked the electric timing device in front of him that ticked off the seconds, as a red hand crawled around to zero, and when it swept down to the thirty-second mark, Tom pulled the microphone to his lips again. "Control deck to power deck. Check in!"

"Power deck, aye?"

"Energize the cooling pumps!"

"Cooling pumps, aye!" repeated Astro.

"Feed reactant!"

"Reactant at D-9 rate."

From seventy feet below them, Strong and Tom heard the hiss of the reactant mass feeding into the rocket motors, and the screeching whine of the mighty pumps that kept the mass from building too rapidly and exploding.

The second hand swept up to the twenty-second mark.

"Control deck to radar deck," called Tom. "Do we have a clear trajectory forward?"

"All clear forward and overhead," replied Roger.

Tom placed his hand on the master switch that would throw the combined circuits, instruments and gauges into the single act of blasting the mighty ship into space. His eyes glued to the sweeping hand, he counted past the twelve-second mark—eleven—ten—nine—

"Stand by to raise ship," he bawled into the microphone. "Minus—five—four—three—two—one—zero!"

Tom threw the master switch.

There was a split-second pause and then the great ship roared into life. Slowly at first, she lifted her tail full of roaring jets free of the ground. Ten feet—twenty—fifty—a hundred—five hundred—a thousand—picking up speed at an incredible rate.

Tom felt himself being pushed deeper and deeper into the softness of the acceleration cushions. He had been worried about not being able to keep his eyes open to see the dwindling Earth in the teleceiver over his head, but the tremendous force of the rockets pushing him against gravity to tear the two hundred tons of steel away from the Earth's grip held his eyelids open for him. As the powerful rockets tore deeper into the gap that separated the ship from Earth, he saw the spaceport gradually grow smaller. The rolling hills around the Academy closed in, and then the Academy itself, with the Tower of Galileo shrinking to a white stick, was lost in the brown and green that was Earth. The rockets pushed harder and harder and he saw the needle of the acceleration gauge creep slowly up. Four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten miles a second!

When the awful crushing weight on his body seemed unbearable, when he felt as though he would never be able to draw another breath, suddenly the pressure lifted and Tom felt amazingly and wonderfully buoyant. He seemed to be floating in mid-air, his body rising against the webbed straps of his chair! With a start and a momentary wave of panic, he realized that he was floating! Only the straps kept him from rising to the ceiling of the control room!

Recovering quickly, he realized that he was in free fall. The ship had cleared the pull of earth's gravity and was out in space where everything was weightless. Reaching toward the control panel, he flipped the switch for the synthetic-gravity generator and, seconds later, felt the familiar and reassuring sensation of the chair under him as the generator supplied an artificial-gravity field to the ship.

As he loosened the straps in his chair, he noticed Captain Strong rising from his position beside him and he grinned sheepishly in answer to the twinkle in Strong's eye.

"It's all right, Tom," reassured Strong. "Happens to everyone the first time. Carry on."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Tom and he turned to the microphone. "Control deck to all stations! We are in space! Observe standard cruise procedure!"

"Power deck, aye!" was Astro's blasting answer over the loud-speaker. "Yeeeoooww! Out where we belong at last."

"Radar bridge here," Roger's voice chimed in softly on the speaker. "Everything under control. And, Astro, you belong in a zoo if you're going to bellow like that!"

"Ahhh—rocket off, bubblehead!" The big Venusian's reply was good-natured. He was too happy to let Roger get under his skin.

"All right, you two," interrupted Tom. "Knock it off. We're on a ship now. Let's cut the kindergarten stuff!"

"Aye, aye, skipper!" Astro was irrepressible.

"Yes, sir!" Roger's voice was soft but Tom recognized the biting edge to the last word.

Turning away from the controls, he faced Captain Strong who had been watching quietly.

"Polaris space-borne at nine hundred thirty-three hours, Captain Strong. All stations operating efficiently."

"Very competent job, Corbett," nodded Strong in approval. "You handled the ship as if you'd been doing it for years."

"Thank you, sir."

"We'll just cruise for a while on this orbit so you boys can get the feel of the ship and of space." The Solar Guard officer took Tom's place in the command pilot's chair. "You knock off for a while. Go up to the radar bridge and have a look around. I'll take over here."

"Yes, sir." Tom turned and had to restrain himself from racing up the ladder to the radar bridge. When he climbed through the hatch to Roger's station, he found his unit-mate tilted back in his chair, staring through the crystal blister over his head.

"Hiya, spaceboy," smiled Roger. He indicated the blister. "Take a look at the wide, deep and high."

Tom looked up and saw the deep blackness that was space.

"It's like looking into a mirror, Roger," he breathed in awe. "Only there isn't any other side—no reflection. It just doesn't stop, does it?"

"Nope," commented Roger, "it just goes on and on and on. And no one knows where it stops. And no one can even guess."

"Ah—you've got a touch of space fever," laughed Astro. "You'd better take it easy, pal."

Tom suppressed a smile. Now, for the first time, he felt that there was a chance to achieve unity among them. Kill him with kindness, he thought, that's the way to do it.

"All right, boys!" Captain Strong's voice crackled over the speaker. "Time to pull in your eyeballs and get to work again. We're heading back to the spaceport! Take your stations for landing!"

Tom and Astro immediately jumped toward the open hatch and started scrambling down the ladder toward their respective stations while Roger strapped himself into his chair in front of the astrogation panel.

Within sixty seconds the ship was ready for landing procedure and at a nod from Captain Strong, who again strapped himself into the second pilot's chair, Tom began the delicate operation.

Entering Earth's atmosphere, Tom gave a series of rapid orders for course changes and power adjustments, and then, depressing the master turn control, spun the ship around so that she would settle stern first toward her ramp at the Academy spaceport.

"Radar deck to control deck," called Roger over the intercom. "One thousand feet to touchdown!"

"Control deck, aye," answered Tom. "Control deck to power deck. Check in."

"Power deck, aye," replied Astro.

"Stand by to adjust thrust to maximum drive at my command," ordered Tom.

"Power deck, aye."

The great ship, balanced perfectly on the hot exhaust, slowly slipped toward the ground.

"Five hundred feet to touchdown," warned Roger.

"Main rockets full blast," ordered Tom.

The sudden blast of the powerful jets slowed the descent of the ship, and finally, fifty feet above the ground, Tom snapped out another order.

"Cut main rockets! Hold auxiliary!"

A moment later there was a gentle bump and the Polaris rested on the ramp, her nose pointed to the heavens.

"Touchdown!" yelled Tom. "Cut everything, fellas, and come up and sign the log. We made it—our first hop into space! We're spacemen!"

CHAPTER 10

"The next event will be," Warrant Officer McKenny's voice boomed over the loud-speaker and echoed over the Academy stadium, "the last semifinal round of mercuryball. Polaris unit versus Arcturus unit."

As two thousand space cadets, crowded in the grandstands watching the annual academy tournament, rose to their feet and cheered lustily, Tom Corbett turned to his unit-mates Astro and Roger and called enthusiastically, "O.K., fellas. Let's go out there and show them how to play this game!"

During the two days of the tournament, Tom, Roger and Astro, competing as a unit against all the other academy units, had piled up a tremendous amount of points in all the events. But so had Unit 77-K, now known as the Capella unit. Now with the Capella unit already in the finals, the Polaris crew had to win their semifinal round against the Arcturus, in order to meet the Capella in the final round for Academy honors.

"This is going to be a cinch," boasted Astro. "I'm going to burn 'em up!"

"Save it for the field," said Tom with a smile.

"Yeah, you big Venusian ape," added Roger. "Make points instead of space gas."

Stripped to the waist, wearing shorts and soft, three-quarter-length space boots, the three boys walked onto the sun-baked field amid the rousing cheers from the stands. Across the field, the cadets of the Arcturus unit walked out to meet them, stopping beside McKenny at the mid-field line. Mike waited for the six boys to form a circle around him, while he held the mercuryball, a twelve-inch plastic sphere, filled with air and the tricky tube of mercury.

"You all know the rules," announced McKenny abruptly. "Head, shoulders, feet, knees, or any part of your body except your hands, can touch the ball. Polaris unit will defend the north goal," he said, pointing to a white chalk line fifty yards away, "Arcturus the south," and he pointed to a line equally distant in the opposite direction. "Five-minute periods, with one-minute rest between. All clear?"

As captain of the Polaris unit, Tom nodded, while smiling at the captain of the Arcturus team, a tow-headed boy with short chunky legs named Schohari.

"All clear, Mike," said Tom.

"All clear here, Mike," responded Schohari.

"All right, shake hands and take your places."

The six boys shook hands and jogged toward respective opposite lines. Mike waited for them to reach their goal lines, and then placed the ball in the middle of a chalk-drawn circle.

Toeing the line, Tom, Roger and Astro eyed the Arcturus crew and prepared for the dash