Tom Swift and the Martian Moon Re-Placement (The TOM SWIFT Invention Series Book 23) Read online

  TOM SWIFT

  And The

  Martian Moon

  Re-placement

  BY

  Victor Appleton II

  Thackery Fox & Associates

  Made in The United States of America

  This book is dedicated to the surgical team in Portland, Oregon who performed my quadruple heart bypass surgery the Friday before Thanksgiving this past year and got me home for Turkey Day. It happened right in the middle of writing this story and sidetracked me for more than a month, They left me with a pair of scars that might have been worse, but they took their time and got me stitched up with minimal visual evidence of them having been inside. Bravo to them and also to my fans who heard about this and wrote those wonderful emails of encouragement. Thanks all!

  ©opyright 2018 by the author of this book (Victor Appleton II - pseud. of Thomas Hudson). The book author asserts sole copyright to his or her contributions to this book.

  This book is a work of fan fiction. It is not claimed to be part of any previously published adventures of the main characters. It has been self-published and is not intended to supplant any authored works attributed to the pseudononomous author or to claim the rights of any legitimate publishing entity. However, the publisher claiming copyrights have allowed more than one of the books in their series to drop into Public Domain status and so have relinquished total control over these characters.

  THE NEW TOM SWIFT INVENTION SERIES

  Tom Swift and the

  Martian Moon Re-placement

  By Victor Appleton II

  Small, irregular and rocky Deimos and Phobos circle the Red Planet in tight orbits. One is very close at 5,827 miles above the surface—about from New Delhi, India to Northern Australia—and the other circles at about 23,460 miles—or nearly geosynchronous orbit around the Earth like Tom Swift’s Outpost in Space. Neither is very large and neither appear to be natural moons of the planet, but more likely large asteroids that were once caught in the Martian gravity influence… and just stayed around gathering more materials over the millennia.

  There is a problem… tiny Phobos and its seven-and-a-half hour orbit has moved. Not a lot‚ perhaps only 170 miles since the last full measurement twelve months earlier, but it seems to be coming closer and far too fast for comfort of the colony on Mars.

  So, what can go wrong if a chunk of rock less than eight miles wide hits the planet? Or, if the some people have their way, it gets shoved out of orbit and into the Sun and is just no longer an issue?

  Tom Swift knows that there is a balance to just about everything in the universe and within our own solar system. He is greatly worried about the effects of either solution and now seeks to find a way to stabilize things and understand why the little planetoid has changed its behavior.

  ________________________

  This book is dedicated to Asaph Hall who, in 1877 discovered the pair of rocks circling Mars. He called them Phobos (panic or dread) and Deimos (terror) the sons of Ares, Greek god of war (or Mars to the Romans). Neither is perfectly round like our own Moon, and neither has a totally-explained origin or purpose. Also, this is dedicated to Jonathan Swift (no relation) who, in Gulliver’s Travels, speculated about them and came surprisingly close to guessing their sizes. Oh, and that was about 150 years before Hall actually found and named them. Curious or spooky???

  Little Phobos traversed an area of the Red Planet some believed had been the impact site of an even smaller moon eons earlier. CHAPTER 13

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  1Many Ends Tied Up All Nice and Neat

  2The Call From Haz

  3On-Site Visit

  4A Foot or Two

  5The First Serious Meetings

  6Sandy Shines

  7An Initial Landing

  8It’s All a Mystery

  9Just Get Rid of it, Please!

  10The Greater Good… or Not

  11The Second Landing

  12Earthbound… For a Bit

  13A Vicious Cicatrix

  14Princess Stefanie of Mars

  15The Attack

  16Success Comes Before… Aww, Nuts!

  17In The Hall of The Lizard Kings

  18“You’re in For a Bumpy Ride!”

  19One, Final, Continuous Push… or Not

  20Life Goes On………

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The idea for this story came out of the blue as I lay in bed one night in July thinking I had only a few thousand words still to write in the previous book, and after that I did not have a good idea what I wanted to do.

  Other that write more Tom Swift books.

  But, to do that you have to have a title invention, a good idea of how Tom is going to build or accomplish it, and one, two or even three (?) well-rested hands to type thing with. Sorry, with which to type things (can’t dangle that participle!)

  I’ve long loved the lore, supposition and now combination of facts (“Mars must have had water in the past”) all the way to crackpot statements (“There’s a face on Mars” and “This picture proves there was a race of giant gorillas on Mars…”) surrounding the Red Planet.

  It takes a lot to write one book; it takes almost infinite patience to write eight or ten of them. This one is book 23 in the series I have previously told folks I believed might run for up to six books. Total.

  Book 24? Sure. Why not? All it will take is a good title invention, a really good idea of what Tom will do to solve the problem or accomplish the task and giving my hands—and I only have the two of them—a damn good rest so they can once again glide over the keys on my Macintosh keyboard telling me the story.

  Oh, haven’t I mentioned this before? My fingers write everything; my brain only keeps them moving. I often believe that if I lost a finger, Tom might develop a stutter.

  _________________________________

  Copies of all of this author’s works may be found at:

  http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/tedwardfoxatyahoodotcom

  My Tom Swift novels and collections are available on Amazon.com in paperbound and Kindle editions. BarnesAndNoble.com sells Nook ebook editions of many of these same works.

  Handcrafted hardbound versions of the Tom Swift books are available by private order: [email protected]

  Tom Swift and the Martian Moon

  Re-placement

  FOREWORD

  Once upon a time a fellow writer, whose name was a play on the man’s actual name, wrote a series of twenty books about a young man who did incredible things in outer space and on—and under—the Earth who was part of a great organization called UNEXA. That character, Chris Godfrey, had all those adventures as he grew up, took a more management role, and later tried to keep others from repeating mistakes he had made in his early years.

  One of his adventures included Earth’s moon suddenly coming in closer and closer. People on Earth try to pull together to build a giant repelling device that, at the eleventh hour, fails. But, a hero comes forward and saves things at the very last moment. Sorry for the spoiler!

  Oh, don’t worry; people survive and live ever after as they clean up the horrific devastation, but the thing that is most stark and disturbing about the entire story is how Hugh Walters (born Walter Hughes) sees the trivialness of man, narrowness of thought within religions, the pettiness of politicians, and the “What’s in it for us?” of trade unions. There is also how some people will simply give up until panic forces them to do terrible things to each other.

&n
bsp; I did not want to have that desperation and despair become part of this story, but the basic issue at hand—a moon or asteroid or something coming to hit something else (such as us!)—is becoming more and more a possibility. Thus was born this tale.

  So, it is with a huge smile and a sigh of relief I can report that nobody injures their elbow when the courtesy missiles explode, no whale suddenly comes into being and falls hundreds of miles from the sky, a bowl of petunias does not simultaneously appear thinking, “Oh no. Not again!” and while the answer to the BIG QUESTION might remain “forty-two,” that has nothing to do with what goes on inside this book.

  Victor Appleton II

  CHAPTER 1 /

  MANY ENDS TIED UP ALL NICE AND NEAT

  TOM SWIFT, twenty-seven years old, married with two children—Bart and Mary—and his brother-in-law, Bud Barclay, were cruising along at nine thousand feet. It was a bit noisy in the small helicopter, and nobody would ever claim the aircraft was vibration free, but they had incredible smiles on their faces.

  Their wives were in the large, three-decked jet shadowing them. Sandy Swift-Barclay, Tom’s younger sister, and his wife, Bashalli, were in the cockpit flying the Sky Queen, Tom’s first large-scale invention and the very thing he’d been working on when he and Bashalli met more than nine years earlier.

  Sandy was the more qualified pilot between them but Bashalli had just passed her three-hundredth hour of flying time and was rated to fly everything from single-engine propeller planes up to multi-engine jets. Her confidence level might not be the highest recorded, but she was a careful and proficient pilot. In other words, she took nothing for granted and would never end up in peril due to inattentiveness.

  “They seem to be having way too much fun in that helo,” Sandy declared, sounding a little miffed, as she zoomed the video camera she was using in on the underside of the ‘copter.

  “I still do not like that little beast,” Bashalli told her. “Not after what the first one did crashing with Tom and Bud inside!”

  And, crash it had, but only from about ten feet over the water. That prototype had been delivered to Swift Enterprises and for almost a week Bud had tested it on or close to the ground, noted what seemed to be a large number of materials deficiencies, fretted over what to tell the manufacturer, became frustrated with, and finally—even after warning Tom he did not want to place the inventor’s life in jeopardy—the two of them took one final flight.

  The main rotor hub had been cast from solid aluminum, something neither of them would ever consider, and had parted ways with the three blades accompanied by a crack, a snap and a huge jerk to the side.

  Luckily for both men, Hank Sterling had worked on the auxiliary pontoons that could be extended from the helo, adding a detection circuit and canisters of CO2. These blew the pontoons out the side of the rear cabin and inflated them in a quarter second, just in time to cushion the dropping fuselage and keep both young men from serious injury as they hit Lake Carlopa.

  Now, with a lot of help from Enterprises—and Bud and Hank—the manufacturer had fixed everything, added the amenities requested, and turned what had been a deathtrap into an exhilarating little sports helo.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Bashi,” Sandy said as whoever was on the stick in the helo sideslipped it at high speed and from there into a tight left turn. She rolled her eyes, but continued as the Queen turned to follow them. “Tom and Bud gave that thing more than a once over yesterday and again this morning before even flipping the ON switch. They’re safe as long as my over eager husband doesn’t try to do something really stupid.”

  Bashalli’s eyes widened and she turned to look at Sandy.

  “Like what?”

  The blond let out a great sigh and pointed. “Like that!” she said.

  As they watched, Bud had the helo climbing nearly straight up and soon had it upside down. It flipped over and back to level, upright flight within a few seconds and continued on its merry way.

  “They went inverted,” she explained. “Not something you or I would do, but then, we’re women and have a lot more sense.”

  The two women followed along as the little Whitcomb Dragonfly wiggled, slalomed, rose and descended all around Vancouver Island in British Columbia where its manufacturer was located.

  About an hour after they took off, both aircraft settled onto the runway at the International Airport in Sydney on the southeast side of the island.

  Robert Whitcomb, a tall and every-so-slightly bent older man, climbed from his sedan and walked over to Tom and Bud as they got out. His right hand was extended and there were tears glistening in his eyes.

  “By gosh, and unless you tell me something horrible was happening up there, I watched the entire thing with my field glasses. Magnificent!” He waited expectantly for either of them to say something.

  Bud’s face split into a smile. “It truly is a great little chopper,” he declared. “Your folks did everything we asked for, and a couple more things, and it all just works! These past five months since Hank and I came out to help were all put to great use.”

  Bashalli got to them a moment later followed by Sandy who had stopped in one of the Sky Queen’s bathrooms to brush her hair and re-band her ponytail.

  “Is it everything you both hoped for?” Whitcomb inquired.

  In unison, they nodded and grinned.

  “Then, I can begin the certification process,” he told them as Sandy approached, “and perhaps by this time in four months I can have a few of these coming off the line. I don’t know quite how to thank you. All of you!”

  Understanding the precarious financial situation the company was in, Tom stated, “You will allow us to take you to dinner down in Victoria. I know an excellent and relaxed place on Douglass near the corner of Pandora if you are interested.”

  Whitcomb smiled and nodded. “I know the place. Great food and there is one waitress who makes this old heart race. She always smiles, gives my shoulder a squeeze and calls me Bobby and knows just what I like. So I say why not! Other than the who pays thing.”

  Tom shook his head. “You’ve put your own fortunes on the line for the Dragonfly, so let me buy tonight. Once you start selling them we’ll come back and dinner can be your treat.”

  Whitcomb agreed and made a quick call to have some of his men come move the small aircraft back to its hangar.

  Over a great “small plates” dinner the five talked about how Victoria was undergoing a sort of renaissance. Older buildings that had gone empty for years were being repaired and updated and numerous small businesses were moving back downtown.

  “We have a wonderful restaurant scene up here and even get visitors on gastro-vacations from as far away as New Zealand!” Robert boasted.

  * * * * *

  Tom was sitting at his desk in the small underground office next to the parking place for his Sky Queen a week later when he heard the elevator ding announcing he was about to have a visitor or visitors. From the heavy stomping of feet he knew quickly it was going to be his sister, Sandy, and she was in a bad mood. All her emotions came out through her feet.

  As she stormed in through the door, her face was red with anger and frustration.

  “It isn’t fair, Tom Swift, and you know it!” she stated in a loud, angry voice.

  Knowing it never did any good to snap back at her, he calmly asked, “What is not fair, Sandy?”

  “You know all about that stupid school mother went to and how her grandfather made sure if you didn’t go there you didn’t get any of his money?”

  It was true. Matthew Bartle, a railroad tycoon and Anne Swift’s maternal grandfather, had given his children next to nothing from his vast fortune. Instead, he’d set up a multi-million dollar fund to not only build a school to educate girls in what he termed the “household arts”—cooking, cleaning, baby rearing (but no education on how they came about) sewing, keeping the household budget, and such—but to pay the female members of his family for attending that school. It came in the
form of a gift of whatever one percent of the total fund had in it and only if she attended the school outside of Schenectady for at least four years, graduated, and then reached the age of thirty.

  “Yes, Sandy, I do know all about it.” He eyed her carefully, waiting for the volcano that was Sandy Swift-Barclay’s temper to blow.

  “Well, then you’re part of the whole problem! You boys get money even if you don’t go there, and until lately you couldn’t ‘cause it was just for girls, and you get yours when you turn eighteen no matter what. It’s not fair!”

  She sat down on the sofa and started to cry. He came around the desk, sat next to her and put an arm around her.

  Taking a deep breath because he wasn’t certain how she would react to hearing some of the basic truths, he told her, “I know mom told you all about that place when you turned something like ten. And then, she told you again the summer you were eleven, and twelve and even thirteen. All those times you pretty much told her you’d rather eat worms than go to some place like that and didn’t give a hoot about the money.”

  She sniffled and shuddered, but she nodded. “But, I didn’t know…” she wailed.

  “You did know because I had to listen to mom, and even dad, telling you all about what it would mean and what you’d miss out on. You just never wanted to listen to it. They gave you the ultimate choice and you chose to stay in Shopton. I’m really sorry about it all, but it was the rules and not even Enterprises’ best lawyer could find a way to break that will. I’m also sorry and a little embarrassed that Matthew Bartle was seemingly so short sighted he only burdened girls with that, but it was his way of getting them an education where few made it past about sixth grade back then.”