The Republic of Mars: Stage 4 (Book 2)

By Matthew B. Thompson

Less than a week ago, an enormous UFO emerged off the coast of California and paraded across the entire American continent. It came to rest in Washington, D.C., and its leader landed on the White House lawn. The UFO wasn’t full of aliens. It was full of humans from the fabled city of Atlantis, and their leader revealed a monumental revelation: humans aren’t as dumb as we were led to believe. They are the most intelligent beings in the galaxy. Some people accepted this, while others didn’t. An Atlantean rival also arrived, the Osirians. Their leader used this minor quarrel to physically divide the American people: half of them transforming Mars into another Earth, and the other half picking a fight with very dangerous aliens. Both were a trick.

Now have to reap what we've down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew B. Thompson
• Release date: Feb 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9780990627661

Matthew B. Thompson

Matthew B. Thompson is a native Texan and an avid fan of science, science-fiction and history. He has a background in physics and biology with a very good understanding of engineering and evolutionary genetics. He earned the rank of Eagle Scout at a young age, but was stricken with a very serious tumor shortly after earning a Bachelor of Science degree. He beat the odds, even though he had less than a 1% chance of survival. To shock his doctors even further ... he started walking again. To EVERYONE'S amazement ... he got married. He is now the stay-at-home father for their small child.

Book preview

Stage 4

The Republic of Mars Series

Book 2 by Matthew B. Thompson

Copyright © 2016

Oak Island Publishing, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

EISBN: 9780990627661

Smashwords Edition

GLOSSARY in the NCX (T.O.C)

---

Chapter 1

Death Ground

Less than a week ago, an enormous UFO emerged off the coast of California and paraded across the entire American continent. It came to rest in Washington, D.C., and its leader landed on the White House lawn. The UFO wasn’t full of aliens. It was full of humans from the fabled city of Atlantis, and their leader revealed a monumental revelation: humans aren’t as dumb as we were led to believe. They are the most intelligent beings in the galaxy. Some people accepted this, while others didn’t. An Atlantean rival also arrived, the Osirians. Their leader used this minor quarrel to physically divide the American people. She distracted non-believers by telling them that the planet Mars would solve their problems. The Osirians even did Stages 1, 2, & 3 for us. It was a test … and Humanity failed; but that doesn’t mean the story is over. Far from it.

An elderly 18-wheel truck trudges north on Texas Highway 77 near Dallas’ Historic District. The driver has brown eyes, a sparse beard and a sizable gut. A thoroughly worn dark brown baseball hat hides his wavy light brown hair. He blares the radio, while a black and white dog dozes on top of potato chip crumbs and mats of dog hair in the passenger seat.

The stout driver reaches over and pokes the dog with his large finger. See that? he says with a gruff voice, pointing to one of the streets below the elevated highway. That’s the spot where JFK was shot. The dog lazily lays his head back down on the potato chip crumbs. Oh, the trucker growls. What do you know, anyway? You’re just a dog.

He grabs a half-eaten hamburger laying on a crumpled fast food bag and takes a bite. The messy sandwich immediately oozes all kinds of things. He doesn’t seem to notice, putting the messy burger back on the bag. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve, and reaches for the styrofoam fountain drink parked in a cup holder on the console. After taking a long slurp through the straw, he shifts gears and pushes the big rig up the highway’s ramp.

Suddenly, an immense UFO falls out of the clouds, plummeting toward dozens of the glass and metal towers below. The circular machine is enormous, three times as long as America’s largest aircraft carrier.

The trucker jolts. Holy crap! he says with a strained voice. All he can do is watch the carnage about to unfold, right before his eyes. A split second before the titanic vessel smashes into dozens of high-rise buildings … it stops. As though it hit an invisible wall, the mammoth vessel stops in mid-air, mere feet above the glass towers. Damn! he mutters before blindly jamming the warm soda back into the cup holder, taking a second to breathe a sigh of relief. Roscoe! the trucker suddenly barks to the dog, and jabbing the animal with his thick finger. He points his finger at the giant spaceship. I bet that’s those Atlantis people we saw on TV, he tells the dog.

In a city where a common downtown building eclipses the historic six-story book depository, the immense ship upstages them all … at the same time. The drowsy canine stands up, stretches and stares at the mottled red and black pattern on the UFO’s underside. The mysterious pattern undulates, moving and changing, like the UFO has the skin of a living creature. The turtle shell pattern isn’t just on the ship’s underside, but it’s overside, as well. The gray section sandwiched between them is flat, but not featureless. The unkempt driver can see hangar doors, lights, and equipment of all kinds. He adjusts his brown camouflage baseball hat, then talks to the dog again. I wonder how close we can get? He shifts gears again and steers the blue and white rig toward the exit ramp.

Inside the Enormous Ship

Percival, K’kul and Asher walk around the forward section of a vimana. It has an extremely simple design and no landing gear at all. It looks like a giant, silver soda can that’s hovering two feet above the hangar floor. Percival is young and clean-shaven with short blond hair, while K’kul is older with a neatly-trimmed white beard and white hair. Both men are tall and slender. They look like two sides of the same Scandinavian coin: one younger and one older. Percival wears a light gray suit-like garment, a white shirt and red vest, while K’kul wears the same light gray suit-like garment and white shirt, but has a light gray vest and red cummerbund. Asher isn’t as fashionable as the other two. Although he’s clean-shaven and slender like Percival, he has dark brown hair, blue jeans and a knit shirt.

The bow of a vimana looks the same as its stern – a round, slightly convex piece of silvery metal. The small vessel is a featureless, seven-foot-tall cylinder. It doesn’t have wings or windows, so Asher’s only hope of finding the door-hatch is by following the other two people.

They all walk around it, only to see a portion of the vimana’s hard shell liquefy. Asher’s somewhat distressed by the spectacle, but the other two people are unmoved, so he simply watches. It’s as though the vimana’s hull had been hit by an unseen laser. Like streams of mercury, silvery metal flows toward the hangar floor, but stops short of it. As though the silvery metal was poured into ghostly molds, it reforms into five stairsteps … each hovering in mid-air. A smooth, oval-shaped entrance emerges from the gaping wound, centered on the mysterious stairsteps and revealing the vessel’s interior.

Percival enters first and sits down. He’s the craft’s helmsman, its pilot. He sits on its front-left side and behind four viewscreens: three in front of him and another below them. Somehow, Percival seems to have mastered electronics themselves. He only needs to look at a screen or a computer system for it to activate. This young man is not the 21 year-old novice that he appears.

K’kul enters next and moves to the seat nestled in the ship’s center. Strangely enough, the vessel’s captain doesn’t have his own viewscreen. He can’t even see a forward-looking screen.

Modern Vimana

Modern Vimana

Just before Asher boards the soda-can-shaped craft, he sees a similar vessel that’s more gray in color. It’s much longer and doesn’t look like a soda can, either. It has a nose cone like a fighter jet and a convex stern. It looks like a giant cigar.

He stares at the cigar-shaped vessel for several seconds. Huh! he announces, and boards K’kul’s craft. He’s ridden in a vimana before, but adrenaline has a way of clouding memories, so this might as well be his first time aboard one. Like a commercial airplane, a level floor bisects the vimana’s cylindrical body. Even a 6 ½ foot tall person can walk down its center without bending over. Since it only has three seats, a few viewscreens and no conventional engine, the 15-foot long craft is quite spacious. There’s only one empty seat, so Asher quietly walks to the communications officer’s station at the right-rear of the ship and delicately sits down.

The gigantic hangar doors open and the vimana’s steps liquefy again. The silvery metal moves upwards and solidifies to reform the craft’s hard metal hull. Asher can see a red light shining just beyond the hangar doors. There aren’t any windows, so all three viewscreens at his station suddenly turn on to give him a view of the exterior. The images are so clear that, for a fraction of a second, he thinks there are holes in the side of the ship. The viewscreens’ resolution suddenly decreases and looks more like that of a traditional computer monitor. The change is comforting, but it doesn’t last long. There’s no sensation of movement when Percival maneuvers the small craft between the hangar doors, and the viewscreens continue to display the outside. He feels a little dizzy.

Uhhh! Asher mumbles.

K’kul looks over his shoulder. You’re not used to it, he says with a resonating baritone voice. You’re a little motion-sick.

Asher’s embarrassed. "I saw the ship’s motion though the window-thing, he explains, but I can’t feel it."

Stannum walls, K’kul says proudly. Neither gravity nor inertia can penetrate them. Stannum is an alloy that we created, and then we made the vimana’s walls out of it. That’s why you don’t feel the craft’s motion. If it weren’t for the stannum walls, the inertia would splatter you all over the inside. It also blocks out gravity, so we put small gravity generators inside the floor. If we didn’t, you’d be weightless right now. There are anti-gravity generators below the floor that make the vimana hover up and down, but the convex caps on the front and rear work together to generate forward thrust. Long vimanas are small cargo ships. They generate forward thrust in a different way.

Holding his stomach and looking green, Asher cuts him off. I’d normally be very interested in what you’re saying, but…

Yes, he mumbles in agreement. Of course. Now, stay in your chair, focus your vision on a single object in here and take several deep breaths. Asher has absolutely no desire to stand up right now and does exactly what he’s told. After a minute or two, the nausea disappears.

The one-inch-thick wall enigmatically melts away had done it did in the hangar, forming a doorway on the vessel’s front-right side. K’kul stands up. Are you feeling better? he quietly asks.

He’s still a bit shaky, but nods his head.

Good! he replies. We’re here.

Already? Asher thinks. That was either a short trip or we were moving like a bat out of hell! When he was aboard one of these ships before, it flew from Earth to Mars in only 43 minutes, so he could be in another state for all he knew.

Percival quickly gets up, grabs a brown spear and leaves the craft. Asher thought it was rude of him to leave like that. He climbs out of the craft while K’kul exits last. They’ve landed on the roof of a very large building and Percival is standing at ‘Attention’ near the stairsteps. He’s holding the strange Stone Age weapon in one hand, but it probably can’t stab anyone at all. The spearpoint is blunt … and looks like it’s made of plastic. The weapon is about five feet long and brown all over. Asher, along with everyone else, suspect that it’s much more than a Stone Age spear.

A businessman wearing a light brown cowboy hat greets the Atlantean group as they exit the silvery craft. Amidst the commotion, Asher leans to K’kul’s ear. This isn’t D.C., he says. I thought we were meeting General Hamilton.

K’kul turns his head slightly. There’s a reason, he says, and turns his head away.

Did I just get snubbed? Asher wonders. He tries to shake the thought out of his head, to no avail. With the group of people now, they walk to the elevators. Behind them, the vimana’s stairs melt to become the craft’s hull again. Asher notices the broadcast tower just before they walk into the building.

Inside the Building

Intricate marble floors, beautiful paintings and sweet-smelling floral arrangements convey a message of refinement and wealth. They enter a spacious elevator with elegant mirrored walls and descend several floors. Exiting the elevator, they walk a short way down a hall and one of the businessmen opens the door. It may as well have been a magic doorway to another world: a blacked-out studio, bright lights with a live news crew, TV cameramen all around, and people carrying ‘who knows what’ to ‘who knows where’.

Another businessman comes up to the group. Hello, he says, excitedly shaking the others businessman’s hand. Thank you for bringing them down here, Jerry. Much obliged. Jerry touches the tip of his cowboy hat and leaves the room. Jerry must be the building’s owner, Asher thinks.

The businessman sees K’kul and reaches out to shake his hand. Mr. K’kul, I’m Randall Hurst, the owner of this studio, he says with a slight drawl. K’kul stares at Randall’s hand for a few seconds then reaches out to grasp it, and Randall shakes it vigorously. I am very pleased to meet you, he says.

K’kul smiles. Yes, Mr. Hurst. Thank you. Randall finally lets go of K’kul’s hand. I have an urgent announcement to make, and a metropolitan studio with well-known hosts will make it more digestible to the common man.

Randall’s smile grows at hearing the compliment. I’m glad we can help you, he says. He turns to the sound stage behind him and points. There is a TV news program recording right now. How soon would you like to…

K’kul immediately walks toward the sound stage. Right now will do, he says. Thank you.

Randall seems to half-expect K’kul’s response. He simply adjusts his body to stand next to Asher. Smart, compassionate, and very determined: he has a lot of admirable qualities.

Yes, he does, Asher replies. He could feel his own chest puffing out at the thought. I haven’t known him very long, but he’s G’brael’s twin brother.

That’s interesting! Randall exclaims. You couldn’t tell by looking at them. Speaking of family, I believe you know my daughter, Erin. Asher gives him a questioning look.

Randall reads him perfectly. Tex, he answers.

A whirlwind of recognition hits Asher like a tidal wave. Yes, I know her, he manages to say. Flashes of memory barrage his thoughts. Why am I thinking about HER? he wonders. Why not Joanne? Asher quickly snaps out of his daydream. She’s a rich kid, he says flatly. That’s why she never mentions a job.

Randall looks stumped for moment. Well, he begins. Stumbling over his words, We … my wife and I…

K’kul stands in the middle of the newscast sound stage. Earth is about to become very dangerous, he says to a TV camera on the studio set. Broadcasting his words live to the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex, and soon to the entire world, he continues. Nefarious events have thrust you into inter-planetary war. The anchorman laughs, and K’kul seems to understand. This is not a joke or a deception of any kind, he says to the camera. You are now at war with the Reticulan Empire, and they will arrive in about 32 hours. All of Earth, even the nicest neighborhoods in the United States, will become a bombed-out battlefield. We are relocating some of you to homes on Mars. Our ships can’t take all of you, but even if we could take all of you, we wouldn’t.

The studio’s director, whose face had been beaming just moments before, drops his jaw. What is he talking about? he asks Percival.

Percival points to K’kul and says, Just listen. He’ll explain.

Only three percent of the world’s people have learned the Lessons that Life teaches, he begins, then takes a breath. "We’re not going to punish failure, but we’re not going to reward it, either. A refuge has been constructed away from the fighting … on Mars. Mars is changing to become another Earth, but this change isn’t instant. It’s still bitterly cold and extremely dangerous. The only food that you will have is what you bring with you. It can be extremely rewarding for those that accept Mars’ challenges and survive its perils. He takes a deep breath. There are several large ships in several cities in the United States and Israel. The attack may begin in as little as 32 hours, so we will leave Earth in just over 24 hours. Socialist, Communist, and other tyrannical countries haven’t learned Life’s Lessons, yet, so Life will teach them once again. Life doesn’t reward failure, so neither will we. We will, however, tell you how to survive. Hide. That’s it. The Reticulans viciously attack at the slightest provocation, but their brains aren’t very sophisticated. It would be like playing Hide And Seek with a small child. He nervously clears his throat. They’re easy to outmaneuver, but it you get caught… He shakes his head. They are as vicious as angry hornets. You will surprise even yourselves with your ingenuity. The ancient Chinese general, Sun Tsu, called it death ground."

With that, K’kul walks out of the camera’s view and over to Percival. Make sure that is retransmitted around the world, and in multiple languages.

Consider it done, Percival answers.

The TV anchorman continues his news broadcast after K’kul’s announcement. That was K’kul, the leader of Atlantis, telling us to hunker down for a couple of days. He starts to make light of K’kul’s announcement. Apparently, Little Green Men are coming, and we shouldn’t look them in the eye. He comically moves his eyebrows.

In an extremely smooth and rapid motion, K’kul grabs the brown spear from Percival’s hand, points it at the plastic backdrop behind the anchorman, and fires. The backdrop explodes, and the news man immediately falls to the floor. Bits of paper and plastic cover the news counter as well as the face-down news reporter.

"That was one person and one shot, K’kul says as he reaches his hand down to help the anchorman to his feet, I certainly wasn’t trying