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    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 7: The Hellas Paradox
    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 7: The Hellas Paradox
    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 7: The Hellas Paradox
    Ebook205 pages3 hours

    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 7: The Hellas Paradox

    By Philip Bosshardt

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    About this ebook

    A Red Harmony agent named Dao arrives on Mars, disguised as a weather scientist. His mission: locate an alien artifact that the cartel hopes to use to access the archive of a long-dead alien race. Finding the artifact, Dao is obliterated by a quantum wave pulse emitted from the object. Worse, the pulse has changed the trajectory of a small comet that is being directed to impact Mars to provide much needed volatiles. Unless something is done, the comet will impact heavily populated areas of Mars in less than six months.
    Johnny Winger and his quantum troopers are given a strange mission, in two parts. One detachment is sent to Mars to locate and render inoperative this artifact, before it erupts again. The second detachment, with Winger himself in command, journeys to the comet itself with the goal of using their ANAD systems to cleave the comet into parts and allow it to be diverted from uncontrolled impact.
    But there is another artifact, unknown to Quantum Corps, that renders the ANAD swarms unreliable and incapable of competing the mission. Using their ship’s weapons, the troopers try to break apart the comet into smaller fragments. But one fragment cannot be diverted and heads unerringly for impact directly into Mars’ most populated regions. Only last-ditch desperate measures by the quantum troopers, in the face of forces they can scarcely imagine, have any hope to preventing unimaginable catastrophe.
    Seventh episode in the Quantum Troopers Return serial.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhilip Bosshardt
    Release dateAug 14, 2020
    ISBN9781005066413
    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 7: The Hellas Paradox
    Author

    Philip Bosshardt

    Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He’s been happily married for over 20 years. He’s also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.For details on his series Tales of the Quantum Corps, visit his blog at qcorpstimes.blogspot.com or his website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt.

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      Book preview

      Quantum Troopers Return Episode 7 - Philip Bosshardt

      Quantum Troopers Return

      Episode 7: The Hellas Paradox

      Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

      Copyright 2020 Philip Bosshardt

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      A few words about this series….

      Quantum Troopers Return is a series of 25,000-30,000-word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences as a quantum trooper with the United Nations Quantum Corps. This series continues the original serial stories of Quantum Troopers, Episodes 1-22 (formerly Nanotroopers).

      Each episode will be about 40-60 pages, approximately 30,000 words in length.

      A new episode will be available and uploaded every 4 weeks.

      There will be 10 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 12 months.

      Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

      The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Harmony’s efforts to use their nanorobotic ANAD systems for the cartel’s own nefarious and illegal purposes.

      Uploads will be made to www.smashwords.com on approximately the schedule below:

      Episode # (*) Title Approximate Upload Date

      1 (23) ‘Fab Lords’ 2-7-20

      2 (24) "Free Fall’ 3-6-20

      3 (25) Forbidden City 4-3-20

      4 (26) Deep Encounter 5-8-20

      5 (27) HAVOC 6-12-20

      6 (28) The Empty Quarter 7-10-20

      7 (29) The Hellas Paradox 8-14-20

      8 (30) Twist Pirates 9-11-20

      9 (31) The Better Angels 10-9-20

      10 (32) The Ship of Theseus 11-13-20

      (Note *: Episode numbers start with Episode 1 in this new series but the continuation of episode numbers from Quantum Troopers is also provided)

      Chapter 1: Beacon

      September 20, 2065 (EUT)

      Five Thousand Meters Above the Hellespontus Montes

      Mars

      General Dao Wen-Hsien studied the terrain two kilometers below the long gossamer wings of the Archimede rocket glider and thought to himself: how much like Tibet this place seems…the mountains could be the Tien Shan and the plains are so sere and desolate...except for the rust and ocher sands….

      But it wasn’t Tibet. Paryang was twelve long years ago and Dao tried to block out the memory of all the rubble and destruction. Quantum Corps had destroyed Red Harmony’s main base at the monastery. The Keeper of the Sphere had been buried under thousands of tons of rock and debris. Cartel operations had been severely affected, almost stopped completely. They had lost billions in scope and twist profits, not to mention all the fabs that would no longer work.

      The cartel had struggled and limped along for several years, but without the steady stream of tricks from the Keeper, without the help of the Old Ones and their vast technical archive, Red Harmony had been unable to withstand a determined assault from Quantum Corps.

      By the end of the ‘50s, Red Harmony had almost ceased to exist.

      Almost. Dao smiled wryly as the great lip of Hellas Basin eased into view below them, a rounded bulge just nosing over the horizon. Dust devils twisted along the desert floor as Archimede banked sharply and began her long glide toward the dirt strip near the center of the great crater.

      He remembered a meeting the Ruling Council had held in Hong Kong, just two years ago. Zhong, Berensky, Kulagin, Souvranamh, all of them had been there. Souvranamh, the great Thai neuro-traficante, had brought them the startling news.

      The Keeper lives…at least a part of it still exists.

      They had all been incredulous, but the evidence was there for everyone to see. Somehow, in ways no one could understand or explain, the Keeper…the operating system of the Sphere that maintained the gateway between Red Harmony and the Old Ones, had transmitted a partial copy of itself to another Sphere, buried under the desert sands at Hellas Basin, Mars.

      Communication with the Old Ones was still possible, and more than ever, essential, if the cartel were to survive. But in order for the link to be opened up and stabilized, someone would have to go to Mars. Someone would have to couple with the Keeper directly and re-establish the link…reset the quantum channels, re-initialize the buffer and amplifier so that humans could talk with their distant alien mentors once more.

      Something’s wrong with the coupler, Souvranamh had told them. There’s a lot of static and drop-out. I get a few signals…nothing intelligible. But it’s definitely a Keeper signal. If we get one of us inside that Sphere, it should be possible to re-configure the link and open a channel.

      So Dao Wen-Hsien was chosen to make the trip.

      Dao watched the dusty sand dunes of Hellas rushing up at them. Archimede’s pilot battled some tricky crosswinds and floated them down to a soft skidding landing on the dirt strip at Hellas Station. With a grinding bump and a rooster tail of red dust, the rocket glider slid and skewed her way to a stop only a few hundred meters from the station complex.

      A muffled voice came over the cabin intercom. All passengers, secure for towing. We’ll be underway for about ten minutes. Please remain seated until I turn on the EXIT lamps. And remember, two people per airlock cycle and watch your first steps outside. Traffic control just informed me they had fresh dust storms this morning and the footing is loose. Captain, out.

      To the other passengers and crew of the glider, Dao Wen-Hsien was a Chinese meteorologist, newly arrived on Mars from UNISPACE to do research on the possible weather impact of the Green Mars Initiative, the big terraforming project that MarsFed had just approved. Dao had received permission from the Council to make the long trip to Hellas Station, to set up some special instrumentation, carried in several trunks in Archimede’s belly and monitor current wind, dust, and other conditions before the Initiative started radically altering the planet’s environment.

      Dao’s real reason for coming was quite different. The Ruling Council of Red Harmony had tasked him with locating the new Keeper of the Sphere, making contact, and re-configuring its quantum coupler so that the cartel could regain contact with the Old Ones.

      The rocket glider was towed by tractor to the station complex. From Archimede’s windows, Hellas Station was little more than a collection of dusty humps and a few cranes and other pieces of equipment strewn about the gentle rise on which the base had been sited.

      When the tow was over, each pair of passengers suited up and made the fifty-meter hike through shin-deep dust to the lockout chamber on the side of Base Central.

      After putting his bags away, Dao attended an orientation briefing for new arrivals in the wardroom. The speaker was a ruddy, big-boned Texan named Hugh Spalding.

      "Listen up, ya’ll," Spalding boomed over the din of the meeting. He had a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth. Some kind of juice dribbled out onto his chin as he spoke.

      We’ll organize parties and details by specialty right after this meeting. Before anybody goes outside, ya’ll read that little booklet you received when you checked in. Memorize it. It’s got all the safety procedures for expeditions. I don’t want anybody wandering around getting lost or falling into a crevice while you’re outside. While you’re here, I’m the expedition boss. Outside these walls, you do what I say. If you don’t, you stay inside and we ship you out on the next shuttle. Got it?

      There was a chorus of nods and mumbled assents. The meeting droned on for another hour. Dao listened politely but concentrated on his own notes, then watched ocher dust swirling outside the portholes.

      Somewhere out there, a Keeper was buried. It was his job to find it and soon. If he failed, Red Harmony was finished.

      The first parties were scheduled for the next morning. Dao was assigned to a detail of six scientists and one expedition leader from the Station crew. The leader was a balding Russian named Fedorov, built like a wrestler. There were two geologists from Japan, an astronomer from India, an American physicist and an English meteorologist named Colin Plunkett.

      The party climbed aboard a snorting marscat and secured their gear. Fedorov drove the cat and they soon trundled off through heavy dust fall toward a line of low hills in the distance.

      The Saucer Hills, Fedorov explained, as he settled in for the three-hour drive. Looks like a flying saucer, to some people. We stop there, have lunch, and get out for a walk, set up some equipment, take measurements, whatever you like. Two hours at the Hills, then on to our next objective.

      Dao quietly checked the coordinates the Ruling Council had given him. Forty-five degrees south by seventy-one degrees east. He scanned a small map of Hellas basin on his wrist computer. The Keeper was there, just at the far base of the Saucer Hills.

      At least, someone had done their homework, he thought.

      Hellas basin was a big bowl of sand dunes and ridged terrain, with a few sinuous mountain chains crumpling and buckling the ground for relief. As the marscat rumbled south by southwest from Hellas Station, Dao studied the monotonous yet stark ground bouncing by the portholes. The cat followed a curving route through undulating dunes, rising and falling like a ship on a dusty red ocean. Massive boulders and craters dotted the landscape. The view reminded Dao of a giant sand table.

      He knew that much of the terrain was likely to change over the next century, if the Green Mars Initiative was successful. Others in the expedition must have been thinking the same thing.

      Plunkett, the Englishman, hmmphed. Better enjoy it while you can. Once the first changes come, this will probably be a big lake.

      Like before, said Suwarthy, the Indian astronomer. He was sweating in his suit, a sheen of perspiration shiny on his forehead. Some think Hellas was an inland sea or lake once.

      The expedition discussed and debated the issue heatedly for awhile. Dao half-listened, concentrating on what he had to do. The Keeper signal had been weak, staticky quantum states spritzing through spacetime, on and off. Souvranamh thought he might be able to detect it within a few hundred meters, maybe even a kilometer away. The Chinese meteorologist eased forward to sit near Fedorov up front, eyeing the nav screen. It had a projected route overlaid on video of the terrain ahead. The Russian had to keep the pipper representing the marscat centered between the route’s red dotted lines.

      Getting close? Dao inquired of the Russian. Fedorov grunted. He stretched his back and neck, trying to get some feeling back into his shoulders.

      Another half an hour. We stop and get out.

      Dao noticed the flashing dot on the screen. That’s our objective…that dot? He figured the Keeper coordinates were easily several kilometers from the spot.

      Fedorov yawned and nodded. Camp Chaos. See this region--? He swept his hand over a region of tortured and fractured terrain to the southwest. It’s called Hellas Chaos. Could be a river or lake outflow…who knows? The camp is on a promontory at the end of this ridge. We’re following that ridge right now.

      Dao did some quick calculations. It would take an hour, maybe more, to walk the several kilometers to the Keeper coordinates. Somehow, he’d have to get away from the party and doing that would be almost impossible.

      But General Dao Wen-Hsien was nothing if not prepared. He got up and made his way back into the marscat’s main cabin. The others were drowsy and lost in thought; only Suwarthy was staring out a porthole, eyeing a pair of dust devils dancing across the valley floor below. Dao smiled politely as he eased past the Indian astronomer, and slipped into the service compartment at the rear of the cat.

      Marscats were like huge, articulating caterpillars on treads. Three compartments were strung together, each free-swinging. From front to back, the cats were made up of a command compartment, a crew compartment and a service compartment. The service bay contained the galley and the lockout and stores lockers, including the expedition’s pressure suits and suit supplies.

      Dao made a show of rummaging through the galley, ostensibly looking for something to munch on. When he was sure no one was looking, he slipped into the cabinet where suit supplies were stored and located all the chest control packs, which regulated each suit’s environment. In his coverall pockets, Dao had five small buttons, one for each pack. With each button, he stripped off an adhesive patch, and placed the button on the bottom of one pack, out of sight. As he fixed the button in place, he fingered a tiny stud, activating the device.

      When the right time came, each button would do its job.

      Dao was returning to the crew cabin when the marscat lurched slightly and began perceptibly slowing. Fedorov’s gruff voiced called back from the command deck:

      Break out the rations and let’s eat. The camp’s just around the next hill. And start getting your gear together. I don’t want to stay here a minute longer than necessary. We got to make Camp Tracy before nightfall.

      So they ate, munching their sandwiches and fruits in sullen silence, while outside sporadic wind gusts rocked the cat back and forth.

      Wheelock, the American physicist, shook his head, slurped coffee from a thermos. Air’s thicker here in the Basin. Just enough mass to move the cat. Away from Hellas, I doubt we’d even feel that wind…not enough molecules.

      Suwarthy eyed the swirling dust outside. Someday, we won’t need pressure suits here…we’ll be able to get by with skin suits alone…like a winter day in the Himalayas.

      They finished their lunch and suited up. Fedorov personally examined each crew member’s fittings and suit setup, tugging at connectors and hoses, snapping belts and harnesses. Dao watched the Russian carefully. The buttons he had just placed were never detected.

      Outside, the party moved off in all directions. Ostensibly a meteorologist, Dao worked with the Englishmen Plunkett to unload a suite of instruments and load up the packbot. Others were examining a rock fall a few dozen meters away, selecting specimens to take back.

      Fedorov found a small rise near the lip of a nearby crater and hauled himself up to take in the view. The crater had no name in the catalogs, only a number…H-8741. The rim was lined with light frost and several columns of fine red dust, fine as talc powder, danced around the edge.

      Beyond the crater, the scalloped edge of a low escarpment encircled the small promontory they had driven up on. Hellas basin seemed flat and featureless from a great enough distance, but up close, it was anything but featureless. The western slopes of the Chaos were a tortured and crumpled landscape fractured and smashed

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