George and his men
back to Ceres or wherever they want to go."
"Got it," said Mark and began to prepare his report. In less than five
minutes he had sent it, but due to the interplanetary distance he
didn't expect a response for nearly half an hour.
"Sure wish we had that realtime transmission equipment on board," mused
Zip out loud, thinking about how his encounter with the pirates had
begun with the experiment in the control tower in Eagle City. "But I
guess it'll be a few years before the miniaturization is worked out so
that spaceships can carry it."
"We'll get to the base a little faster than we thought, Zip," said Joe.
"This ship is cruising very efficiently. We can learn a lot from it, in
time." The sleek, forest green cruiser sped through the vacuum, rapidly
approaching the edge of the Asteroid Belt.
Six hours and 23 minutes after the destruction of the
atmosphere-generating plant on the edge of the Red Sea on Mars, a small
iron asteroid struck the plant located just south of the Oxia Palus on
an open plain about five degrees north of the equator and fifteen
degrees west of the central meridian. It was a few minutes past 4:00
a.m. local time. Six miles away was the settlement of Westcott.
Most of the local populace had not heard Lurton Zimbardo's radiocast,
since it had come in just before midnight.
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