Blue Hope: (Book 2) (Red Hope) Read online

  “What the hell?” Adam screamed as the hands kept slamming him against the door.

  Wham, wham, wham!

  He could feel the tendons in his hand snapping.

  Adam looked around for his wrench – it was out of reach. All he could find was the TranslatorTablet. He grabbed it and slammed it against the new alien hands that held his feet.

  A scream came from under the door and let go of Adam’s lower half. He swung his body around so he could push with his feet against the door. He pushed with all his strength, but the alien with the big meaty hands wasn’t letting go.

  “Let me go, Heshayta!” Adam yelled.

  A loud boom came from door number two. It dented outward as a terrifying screeching sound emanated from inside. The awful thing behind door number two wanted out. It dented again.

  Adam didn’t know what was worse: an alien trying to extrude him through a tiny opening or the Titanaboa about to escape and eat him.

  Door number two ripped away from the opening and the longest, scariest beast sprung out of it, uncoiling down the long corridor toward the escape capsule door. The snake shook its head and then turned around to see Adam struggling with the Mars man.

  From behind him, Adam heard a loud grinding hiss and the Titanaboa came at him full speed. Adam jerked to the side and the snake slammed into door three, partially crushing it in. The Mars man let go of Adam’s grip and he fell to the side. The snake’s tail slammed into door one and knocked it open. A loud growl emanated from that room.

  “That can’t be good…” Adam started to say.

  The snake turned toward him. Adam stood up and ran quickly to the desk. He reached both arms around the Nilasu mixer box and lifted it up. It was laughably lightweight. He threw his helmet on top and ran, sprinting down the corridor and jumping over the tail of the Titanaboa.

  The Titanaboa’s tail whipped through the air and slammed through one of the windows, shattering it. Air gushed out.

  Adam’s ears popped as the air pressure fell. He put the helmet on as he sprinted the rest of the way toward the door with the star on it. He lurched at the combination keycode panel.

  “First four prime numbers!” he yelled, remembering the unlock code. Adam pushed the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5.

  The door did not open.

  Adam turned around to see the Titanaboa come slithering toward him — the undulating body knocking everything off the walls. It screeched again.

  What a horrible sound! Adam thought.

  “Oh wait, wait, wait…”

  The snake was almost on him!

  “Think!” Adam yelled to himself.

  The Titanaboa was opening its huge gaping jaw, about to eat its first meal in two hundred millennia. It suddenly stopped and screeched in anger. It turned its huge head backward to look at its tail. Two saber-tooth tigers were chomping down on the Titanaboa’s tail and tearing it to shreds.

  The snake screeched in pain, trying to shake its tail loose from the tiger. It flung one of them off and out the laboratory window. Even with the remaining saber-tooth tiger biting its tail, the Titanaboa turned back to look at Adam.

  “Uh oh…,” Adam said, turning back to the combination keypad.

  Memories of middle-school math came rushing back to Adam.

  “Oh how could I be so dumb! ONE is not a prime number! It’s TWO, THREE, FIVE, SEVEN!” Adam yelled, slamming the buttons one at a time.

  The door opened and Adam fell into the escape capsule. The snake screeched behind him.

  In front of Adam was a small closet-sized room with one tall seat and a window in front of it. He set down the Nilasu machine and climbed up onto the seat. Adam looked like a kid strapping into a La-Z-Boy chair. He looked behind him and saw the Titanaboa, having killed the remaining saber-toothed tiger, coming back down the hallway.

  Adam searched the edge of the door opening and saw a green button, similar to those that raised and lowered the cryogenic chamber doors. He pushed it and the door slammed shut. He heard a winding-up sound that got louder and louder — no doubt the computer systems coming on line.

  Bang!

  The snake rammed its head into the outside of the escape capsule door. The capsule shook.

  Adam turned to face forward. The dashboard had a pulsating red button. Adam hovered his hand over it, hesitated for a second, and then slammed down on it.

  With a loud boom, the capsule shot straight upward. Adam was slammed down into his seat by the G-forces. Through the windshield, he could see his ship clear the top of the laboratory and soon after that the rim of the lunar pit.

  His escape capsule kept on rising. Looking through the window on the bottom of the capsule, he saw steam and debris escaping from the broken laboratory window. He could only imagine what hell was breaking loose down there right now.

  The capsule trajectory began to arc as it entered a circular orbit around the Moon. The rocket engines turned off. All was silent except for the familiar sound of cooling fans on the electrical equipment. Adam looked out the window to see if he could see any signs of the Sky Turtle, but he realized that they would’ve already started on the return journey back to Earth.

  The dashboard in the escape capsule lit up with two phrases. Next to each one was a button. This was just as the Mars man had told him. If what he was told were true, one of them would take him to Earth and one would take him to Mars. Unfortunately, he had destroyed the TranslationTablet while trying to escape.

  Button one or button two?

  If only he had a way to communicate with NASA from this alien ship!

  “Dammit!” Adam yelled.

  The escape capsule continued on a steady orbit around the Moon, awaiting Adam’s choice. The Earth was fading behind him.

  Button one or button two?

  Panic rose up from his belly and Adam vomited into his helmet.

  Button one or button two?

  Adam closed his eyes to think. The smell of vomit was overwhelming him. His thoughts were racing.

  If I’d designed this system, I would’ve put my home planet as the primary and the foreign planet as the secondary… so Earth must be number two.

  He hovered his hand over the second button.

  Wait! If this was like any modern airplane GPS system, the first button would take me to the nearest safe landing location…. so that means the first button. I think.

  Adam moved his hand over to the first button.

  “Here goes nothing!” Adam yelled with a grimace.

  Adam slammed his hand down onto the first button.

  Nothing happened.

  “Aw great, now I’ve —”

  Adam choked as his entire body slammed into the seat by sudden and incredible acceleration. The rocket motors went full throttle and the Moon began to visibly slip by faster and faster below him, starting to blur from the vibration. The Earth faded from view behind him as the capsule reached escape velocity and left the Moon’s orbit.

  “Shazbooooooooooooooot!”

  CHAPTER 90

  Sky Turtle — Command Module

  Approaching Earth

  “Fort Worth, this is our last status update before beginning the re-entry process. Looks like we’ve got a good angle. Can you confirm our position data?” Tucker asked.

  After a brief silence, a staticky voice came over the speakers. It was Chris Tankovitch from the Mission Control Center.

  “Greetings crew, hope you all had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Would’ve been better if Captain Alston were with us.”

  “Yes, we are all grieving his loss,” Chris said. “And speaking of which, we’ve arranged for a private line between you guys and Captain Alston’s wife, Connie. She’s on the phone. Hang on, we’ll patch you through.”

  Several click sounds were heard.

  “Hello?” Connie asked.

  “Mrs. Alston? This is the crew on the Sky Turtle.”

  “Chris Tankovitch told me that you had a private message for me?”

&nb
sp; Sally looked at Tucker with sadness. She nodded her head as a signal for Tucker to start the message.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tucker confirmed. “Before your husband sacrificed himself, he left me a note. It was only meant to be read by you, but seeing as how we’re about to crash into the earth at twenty five times the speed of sound, we decided we would read it to you over the communications line — just in case we don’t make it back.”

  “I understand,” Connie said.

  Tucker unfolded the paper.

  “Dear Connie, I know my decision is hard to understand, but it was the only option to save the crew and return a significant amount of Blue Hope back to Earth. Sally and Tucker have a long life ahead of them. I’ve only made a few good decisions in life. The best one was marrying you and starting a family. I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but be careful around Chris Tankovitch.”

  Tucker’s brow scrunched up in concern. He looked at Sally to show his surprise. Tucker continued reading.

  “For some reason which I never determined, he continuously wanted me to go on dangerous missions. And I have no doubt that he set me up with the tabloids. I was foolish, for sure, and almost fell into the trap, but I promise that I was never unfaithful to you. Tell the kids that I love them. Tell them that I will miss them forever. Tell them to think of me whenever they look at the Moon. I love you all — more than there are fire-ants in the yard. Love, Adam.”

  Connie dabbed a tissue against her cheek.

  “Thank you, Tucker.”

  “I’ll give you the note personally when we return.”

  “I look forward to that,” Connie said, crying. She hung up the phone.

  “Sky Turtle crew, this is Chris Tankovitch again. I hope you had a good message for Mrs. Alston.”

  Tucker shrugged his shoulders.

  “It was the best,” Tucker lied.

  A moment of silence fell between mission control and the crew.

  “The president is preparing a memorial service for Captain Alston after you get back,” Chris said.

  “Thanks for the info,” Tucker replied.

  “About your re-entry question, you’re looking good. We are estimating initial entry in about thirty minutes. Looking forward to having you back. It’s been a long week.”

  The crew on the lunar module smiled.

  “We agree!” both astronauts yelled.

  “I have some information that you may find interesting. Cosmonaut Yeva Turoskova’s body was located several days ago and an autopsy was performed. Everything Adam Alston told us… was true. She had acute appendicitis and Adam performed a makeshift surgery to remove the appendix. Unfortunately, she later developed sepsis.”

  “Wow,” Tucker said. “So Adam performed the first emergency surgery in space?”

  “That seems to be the case,” Chris nodded. “Last, but not least I have our chief medical officer standing next to me. He’d like to ask a few questions.”

  “Better be quick,” Tucker said. “We’re getting ready to hit the Earth going Mach twenty five.”

  The crew heard some mumbling over the speakers and then a voice.

  “Hello, crew. This is Dr. Exler. I’ll be in charge of distributing the Blue Hope medicine once it arrives. How much were you able to produce on the Moon?”

  Tucker looked at his notes and then replied, “We made all of it. It’s all glowing blue. So nine liters?” He paused. “During our trip, Captain Alston asked that he be allowed to pick one of the first recipients.”

  “Absolutely,” said Dr. Exler. “We can discuss that further after you land. We believe nine liters will help about twenty thousand patients and, perhaps with a sample to work with, our chemists might find an alternative way to synthesize it here on Earth. We plan to distribute it to about nine regions and from there, doctors will send it to the most needy.”

  “Amazing,” Tucker replied. “Are all of those in the US?”

  “Oh no,” Dr. Exler said. “We’ll be distributing worldwide.”

  Chris came back on the line. “You want an updated ETA?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “We have you dropping down in the eastern Pacific in about 20 minutes.”

  “Thank you, Fort Worth. Over,” Tucker replied.

  “Proceed with re-entry procedures,” Chris said. “See you at Mach zero.”

  The crew buckled in and everything was tied down.

  “Are you ready to go home?” Sally asked.

  “My mind is already there,” Tucker said. “I wish Captain Alston was with us.”

  “I know. He sacrificed a lot for this blue medicine.”

  A robotic voice came from the navigation computer. “Retro rockets firing.” The crew felt the sudden deceleration, but it only lasted for a few seconds. That was all it took to initiate the slow down. Gravity would start pulling them downward and they would slam into the atmosphere at nearly seventeen thousand miles per hour.

  “Sparks,” Tucker said, pointing to the window.

  Sparks and streaks shot past the windows. The friction from the capsule scraping through the atmosphere was causing the bottom to burn away — a planned method for getting rid of the intense heat expected during re-entry.

  The capsule was now buffeting with a slight oscillation from side to side. The sparks vanished as the blackness out the window turned into a turquoise glow. As with the previous Apollo crews, they were just along for the ride now.

  Far beyond the window they could see the Pacific Ocean, parts of it hidden by majestic white clouds.

  The buffeting stopped, but the deceleration was intense. The air was slowing them down quickly. A loud clanking sound came from the roof as three parachutes ejected upward. The deceleration, almost unbearable before, intensified even more. The astronauts performed their anti-g maneuvers of grunting and flexing their muscles to prevent blood from pooling at the bottom of their bodies.

  The crests of the beautiful Pacific waves came into view. The capsule dropped softly into the water as the inflatable ring around it popped out to keep it from sinking. The parachutes collapsed downwind of the capsule, floating in the water.

  Sally and Tucker yelled in excitement. They’d made it. They were home. They’d gone to the Moon and made it back with the most precious cargo mankind had ever created.

  The two astronauts opened the hatch and looked outside. First Sally and then Tucker.

  Clear blue skies with a few puffy clouds.

  Within just fifteen minutes, they heard the wop, wop, wop of a helicopter approaching. It hovered over the capsule and a few Navy seamen dropped down into the water with a large package. The package suddenly ballooned into an inflatable raft.

  Sally and Tucker climbed out of the capsule and into the raft. All they carried with them was the container of Blue Hope. One by one, the astronauts and then the sailors were hoisted up into the helicopter. After securing the vital cargo, the helicopter flew away, leaving the capsule there all alone. A ship would come by eventually to pick up the capsule. It bobbed up and down, alone in the ocean, having just transported a miracle across space and time.

  CHAPTER 91

  10:22pm

  Six hours after the Sky Turtle returned to Earth

  Fort Worth, Texas

  An ambulance drove down Interstate-30 at high speed, leaning toward, but never quite kissing the other cars. The streetlights illuminated the driver’s face in pulses, sending darkness across his sweaty brow again and again. In the back of the vehicle sat two men dressed in white doctor’s coats — each had an arm wrapped tightly around one of the side railings to keep from falling. The older of the two men used his other arm to clutch a cooler with lots of medical jargon written on the outside. They rocked back and forth as the van took the curves too fast. Both were holding back vomit. Had it not been for raging storm, they would’ve taken the Life Flight helicopter instead.

  The driver pressed a cellphone to his head. The voice on the other end whispered, “She’s breathing very shall
ow now.”

  The driver turned on the siren and roof lights.

  The ambulance exited the freeway at the Clark Children’s Hospital exit. With one hand on the wheel and one smashing the cellphone to his ear, the driver ignored stop signs and skidded around corners, flooring it and running red lights. He turned hard into the emergency entrance to the hospital, skidding to a halt. The back doors swung open. The two doctors hopped out with the cooler and ran through the ER doors.

  The ambulance driver followed them, holding the cellphone to his ear. The voice on the phone said, “She’s leaving us.”

  The doctors sprinted down the hallway, slammed open a door and sprinted up the stairs, skipping three steps at a time. On the second floor, the door flew open, ejecting the two doctors. They ran next to each other. One opened the cooler while the other pulled out a syringe.

  The driver was still in the stairwell, out of breath. He yelled into the phone, “We’re in the building. Keep her going,” he panted, leaning over. “Please.”

  “We’re almost there, Sophie!” yelled the two doctors as they sprinted down the hallway past surprised patients and staff.

  The doctors grabbed onto the door jamb, skidding into the patient’s room. It was filled with family members, all surrounding Sophie Rodriguez, the little girl in the final stages of pancreatic cancer. The attending hospice nurse laid her phone down on the desk; she had been feeding updates to the ambulance driver.

  Sophie’s family crowded even closer, everybody holding on to her. The cries were inconsolable, waiting for their precious daughter to go to heaven.

  Now they were confused.

  The winded doctor holding the syringe searched the crowd. He found an older man in a white lab coat and asked, “Are you Dr. Defranco?”

  “Yes, I’m her oncologist,” Dr. William Defranco said.

  “Here. Inject this right into the primary tumor site.”

  Dr. Defranco was handed the syringe — he shook his head and said, “I’m afraid you’re too late.”

  “Please just do it now!” yelled the winded doctor. “This syringe contains the Blue Hope serum created on the Moon mission. This is her only chance. For the love of God, use this medicine!”