Hello everyone this is Dave the Miracle Maker. It’s another beautiful day up here in the high desert of Southern California. It’s starting to warm up, but it’s not too hot yet. How many of you feel sad sometimes? Did you know that you can choose to be happy? Sometimes things happen in life that make us sad, such as someone dying or something else happens, and there is nothing wrong with that, but you don’t have to suffer. Eventually, you need to focus on the positive things in life and not dwell on the sad things. It’s a little bit harder to do when a loved one passes away. Several years ago my brother crashed a motorcycle and died. I went through a rough patch where I was beyond sad, but eventually, I quit dwelling on the loss and got on with my life, but it took more than ten years to get to the point where I could talk about him to someone else and not get choked up.

If you dwell on the sad situations in your life for too long, it will keep you from manifesting the life that you want. What do you have to do with your body to feel sad? Usually, your head is down, your shoulders are down and your voice is shallow. You move slowly and say things like, why does this always happen to me? or nothing ever works out. Put your shoulders back, your head up, and your chest out and put a big smile on your face. Choose to be happy and manifest the life of your dreams. Peace out.

Now for your reading pleasure chapter eight of my science fiction novel, the Battle for Europa.

Chapter 8

David Gallagher and Alonzo Garcia looked out of a porthole as their shuttle approached the spacedock orbiting the planet. They stared out at the massive vessels docked at the space station. Alonzo’s eyes widened. An entire fleet of larger vessels was in a stationary orbit off by themselves. A spider web of mooring lines and docking tubes connected the vessels to the space station.

“Look at those ships over there. They’re gigantic!” Alonzo said.

“Those are the ships of that new fleet they were talking about on the news. They’re leaving the solar system and heading to deep space.”

Alonzo nodded. “I’d love to get assigned to one of those babies.”

David shook his head. “Not me. I don’t mind being gone from Earth for a year or two, but those ships might not come back for quite a while.” Their shuttle approached a huge set of steel doors. They saw a red flashing light when the shuttle bay doors slid open. Their shuttle flew through the launch bay doors and onto the landing bay. The outer doors closed behind them. They felt a slight jolt when the shuttle touched down on the bay.

The voice of the shuttle’s pilot came over the shuttle’s PA system. “They have restored oxygen and gravity to the landing bay. You may disembark.” David and Alonzo stood to their feet, stepped out into the aisle way, and followed the crowd to the exit ramp. When they stepped onto the bay, David paused, shivering from the cold. He glanced around. Several other shuttles were docked nearby. Young men and women made their way across the bay to an airlock. A few older men in military uniforms were, mixed in with them that arrived on the shuttles. The noise of conversation drifted across the deck. David looked up. A launch control center, enclosed in hardened glass, towered above them.

“Let’s move it! Follow the crowd to the airlock! Show the receptionist in the lobby your orders and she’ll direct you to your connecting flight! We need to clear this launch bay so we can bring in some more shuttles!” a dark-haired naval ensign standing next to the exit ramp yelled.

“Right. Yes sir,” David said. He followed the crowd toward the airlock with Alonzo walking along beside him. They crowded into the airlock with several other inductees. There was a hiss of air, the inner doors opened and they stepped out into a massive lobby. Green carpeting covered the deck and to their right. There were large glass windows that looked out to space. Spaceships of every size and description were docked at the space station.

In front of them set four reception desks. Lines of inductees and military men in uniform stood in front of the desk. Conversation buzzed through the room. On the bulkhead behind the reception desks, mounted near the ceiling hung a large VID screen. It announced the arrivals and departures of various ships. They fell into the back of the nearest line.

“Hurry up and wait,” Alonzo said.

“I guess that’s something we’re going to have to get used to.” After a half-hour of waiting, David reached a reception desk.

“Scan your wrist across my pad,” the blonde-haired female ensign at the reception desk said. David breathed in the sweet smell of her perfume. Thinking that she looked pretty in her uniform, he complied with her request. “You’re shipping out on the CEU-Pathfinder. Take corridor C to dock tube twenty-five. The Pathfinder will leave at twenty-three hundred hours. You have two hours to kill. Boarding will start in one hour.” She shot David a smile and handed David his boarding pass.

“Thank you, ma’am.” He stepped out of line. Alonzo stepped up to the desk scanning his wrist on the scan pad and the ensign gave Alonzo his boarding pass.

“We’re on the same transport. How do you want to kill the next two hours?” Alonzo asked.

David Shrugged. “Lead me to the nearest pub.”

They explored the spaceport for twenty minutes and found the local watering hole. Inductees dressed in civilian clothes and military men waiting for transport filled the barroom. Loud music from the bar’s computerized jukebox filled the air. They sat down at the bar next to a couple of other inductees. The smell of alcohol and tobacco smoke filled the room.

“What are you blokes drinking? I’ll buy,” a blond-headed inductee sitting next to David said, extending his hand. “I’m Louis Martian. This bloke with the big nose is my buddy Paul Rosenbaum.”

“Beer. Make it a Blue Bomb. I’m David Gallagher. This is my buddy Alonzo Garcia.” They shook hands.

“Ignore this asshole. My nose is not that big. Well not quite as big as a house anyway. What ship are you guys going out on?”

“The Pathfinder. It leaves in a couple of hours,” Alonzo said.

“Us too. Maybe we’ll be in the same platoon. I hear Fleet Marine boot camp is brutal Mate,” Louis said. He motioned to the bartender and ordered four Blue Bombs.

“From what I hear, it’s way out on the dark side by the penal colonies,” Paul said.

“I ain’t a scared,” Alonzo said, puffing out his chest.

The bartender brought their drinks and David raised his glass. “A toast to whatever wild adventures awaits us at the lunar recruiting depot. To a glorious career in the Federal Defense Forces, however short or long it may be.”

“What did you put on your forms when they asked about whether you would consider going career?” Louis asked, belting back half of his beer.

“I marked the no box. I want to do my hitch and then try to get into some kind of trade school. Maybe after doing a hitch in the federal forces, my low GI rating won’t matter as much,” David said.

“I marked the no box. I can’t see spending the rest of my life out here in the solar system. Once my hitch is up, it’s back to bloody old England for me. My parents sent me to the North America Union to live with my uncle in Michigan. They thought I’d get a better education at the NAU. I went to high school in Coldwater Michigan with Paul here, but I miss home.”

“I marked the yes box. It could be an exciting career,” Paul said and looked at Alonzo. “What about you?”

“I marked the yes box. I figure to do one hitch and see how I like it. After that, I’ll decide whether to go career.” They sat in the pub drinking and getting acquainted. An announcement came over the room’s PA system. It said that boarding would begin on the CEU-Pathfinder. David bought the last round. He and Alonzo, along with their new friends, stumbled down the maze of corridors in a drunken stupor. They entered the docking bay where the CEU-Pathfinder was docked in space. They joined a long line of inductees at the docking tube. The tube opened, and David led the way through and entered the airlock. A naval ensign pointed the way to the passenger bay. They found seats in the back near the lounge area. The ensign that met them when they boarded the ship stepped up in front of the passenger compartment.

“If I could have your attention. I am Ensign Taylor. I’ll be your flight attendant for the trip. We will leave the spacedock shortly and head for the moon. It should take us about forty-eight hours to get there. You’ll find a set of controls on the armrest of your chairs. The backrest lowers making a more comfortable bed. If you’re hungry, the galley will be open until midnight. The lounge will be open for the duration of the flight. If you’d like to play cards or do some drinking, that’s the place. It will be your last chance for booze if you want to drink. There is no drinking of alcohol at boot camp. The lights will dim at twenty-three hundred hours for those who would like to get some sleep. We will show an in-flight movie once we’re underway. Turn on the VID screen on the seat in front of you. The major entertainment channels are available through our satellite link. ETA for departure is ten minutes. You can watch the show on the VID screen or look out of the, nearest porthole. If you need anything please feel free to contact me. I hope you enjoy the flight.”

“I say we go get some brews and then come back to our seats. I’d kind of like to turn the VID screen to the exterior view and watch us leave spacedock,” David said.

“I second that Mate. Especially the part about the brews,” Louis said. Once they retrieved their beer, David sat at his seat flipping through the channels on the VID screen. He used the touchpads on the screen and stopped on the news channel when he saw a familiar face. The face of his brother, Shawn, filled the screen. The video announcing the independence of the mining colonies on Europa and the creation of the New Republic replayed. David’s fists balled up on his thighs. His nails dug into the palms of his hands, his face reddened and he let out a sigh. “What has that crazy son of a bitch gone and done now?”

“What?” Louis Martin said.

“That’s his brother. Forget about it,” Alonzo said. “It’s about departure time.” Alonzo reached over and touched the touchpad on the screen. The view changed showing the exterior of the ship. They heard a slight pop when the explosive bolts securing the mooring lines to the ship fired. The bolts blew, throwing the cables back away from the ship. The vessel drifted in space for a few seconds before the helmsman applied forward thrust.

David changed the VID screen to the movie channel. They watched a movie about the early colonization of Mars. He settled back to enjoy the movie trying to forget about the news and tried to ignore his pounding headache. The pilot of the CEC-Pathfinder flew the ship through one rotation of the planet and headed to the moon.

***

The flight to the moon was uneventful. After the in-flight movie, David, along with the rest of the inductees on board, drifted off to sleep. It had been a long hard day for them all. All though there is no day or night, in space, the ship operated on a twenty-four clock as if on Earth. They woke up at zero six hundred hours and headed to the galley for breakfast. They spent the better part of the next two days playing cards in the lounge and drinking beer. The CEU-Pathfinder entered the moon’s orbit. All four of the young inductees still felt the effects of too much alcohol.

Ensign Taylor stood before the inductees once more. Most of the recruits crowded around the portholes. They were checking out the view, taking in the orbiting space station. Ships were in space awaiting departure. Others entered orbit waiting to dock and still other ships broke orbit heading to Mars or Earth. Shuttles flew back and forth from the surface ferrying troops.

“Gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed your flight. We will dock shortly at the lunar station. Gather your things and form up at the exit hatch,” Ensign Taylor said.

David and Alonzo picked up their traveling bags and stepped out into the aisle way. Louis and Paul stepped out behind them. They followed the crowd to the exit hatch, feeling a slight jolt when the ship docked. David looked out the nearest porthole. Workers wearing EVA suits equipped with jetpacks attached the mooring lines. A long tube extended, from the space station. One of the station’s workers moved to the end of the tube using the jetpack in his suit. He secured the docking tube to the Pathfinder’s exit hatch. The docking tube inflated. It stabilized when the space station’s oxygen tanks pumped it full of air.

Another ensign standing at the exit hatch opened the airlock. The inductees disembarked.

“This is cool,” Alonzo said, stepping through the outer airlock and into the docking tube. He took a little hop and floated up to the top of the tube enjoying the effects of weightlessness.

“Let me give it a try,” David said, taking a little hop, and floated to the top of the tube. The sensation made his stomach feel queasy.

“Gentlemen. Let’s move it. You’re backing up the line. We’ve got a lot of troops to disembark,” An officer behind them said. They floated back down to the bottom of the tube and headed toward the space station. The docking tube, made from a super-hardened rubber, wiggled back and forth. David put his hands on the side of the tube to maintain his balance. He looked through the clear rubber fabric taking in all the ships.

At the end of the tube, David stepped through another airlock and entered the space station. A red monitor mounted on the wall next to the ceiling said: Main Lobby. In front of the digital read-out, a red flashing arrow pointed the way. David turned left and they headed down the hallway following the crowd to the lobby. The narrow hallway intersected with a larger corridor. They turned right joining the crowd.

Military men and women moved against the stream. They were heading to the various ships docked at the space station. In the lobby, they stepped into line at the reception desk. Behind the reception desk, recessed into the bulkhead, set a bank of turbo lifts. When David reached the head of the line a naval officer sat at the desk. A young red-headed woman looked up and smiled. David glanced at a field of tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Scan your wrist over my pad.” David complied with her request. “Mr. Gallagher you’re on shuttle flight three oh two. It leaves at twenty-three hundred hours. Take the turbo lift behind me. The shuttle bay is one deck below us.” She printed David’s boarding pass and handed it to him.

“Thank you, ma’am.” David stepped out of line. He stood to the side waiting for his friends to receive their boarding passes.

“I hope we get lucky Mate. I hope they assign us to the same platoon”

Paul grinned. “That’s all I need, to have you picking on me about my big nose for the next thirteen weeks.”

David laughed. “We’ll be too busy to worry about that big honker of yours.”

“Not you too?” Paul enjoyed the good-natured teasing. They stepped into the turbo lift, along with six other inductees.

“Shuttle bay,” one of the inductees said to the turbo lift’s computer. The lift descended one deck below. The doors opened and they stepped into another smaller lobby. Green carpet covered the floor and a lone reception desk occupied the center of the room. A large set of metal doors set behind the reception desk recessed into the metal bulkhead. Above the doors, a red digital readout displayed the words: shuttle bay airlock. Padded benches lined the bulkhead in front of the desk. David headed over to a food and beverage station setting in a corner. He bought four beers and walked back to where his friends awaited. They popped the tops on their beers and sat down in the lobby to wait.

David drifted off to sleep in his chair. The voice of the receptionist announcing the boarding of flight 302 caused David to jerk his head up.

“Come on Amigo. That’s our flight,” Alonzo said. They stood to their feet and crossed the lobby to the airlock doors. The doors opened, they entered the airlock, the inner door opened and they stepped onto the shuttle bay. Several shuttles were set on the launch bay awaiting passengers. David glanced up at the launch control center towering above them. It consisted of a supper-hardened glass bulkhead. The traffic controllers worked behind it. It was one floor above them on the same level as the lobby.

“Boarding pass?” a young female ensign standing by the door said. David handed her his boarding pass. “You’re on flight three zero two. Follow the catwalk to the fourth row of shuttles. Yours will be the one on the far end by the bulkhead.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” They headed down the launch bay to their shuttle. The hatchway stood open with the boarding ramp extended. They went on board following several inductees up the ramp. David found four seats together near the middle of the passenger bay.

“More hurry up and wait,” Alonzo said.

“I know. It will be past bloody midnight before we even take off, I bet,” Louis said.

“Patience my friend. This Limy hates to wait for anything,” Paul said. The passenger area filled up. A member of the flight crew retracted the boarding ramp and closed the exit hatch.

“Please fasten your seat belts. It’s a short hop to the surface. The take-off is quite exhilarating,” the voice of the shuttle pilot said coming over the craft’s PA system. They fastened their seat belts. The shuttle moved across the launch bay lining up with its assigned launch tube and then came to a stop. David heard the voice of the traffic controller saying that flight 302 was free to launch.

“Here we go. Another E-ticket thrill ride,” Alonzo said. The Gee forces slammed them back into their seats. The shuttle shot down the tube spitting them out to space. Louis and Paul crowded around the portholes. They looked at the vessels docked at the spacedock. David and Alonzo looked over their shoulders. The shuttle descended toward the surface of the moon. They saw domed structures scattered about. There were towering boxy buildings rising above the ground. David noticed several tracked vehicles traversing the streets of the main lunar colony. The shuttle headed toward a large metal tower with a hardened glass dome at its top.

A set of steel doors opened underneath the glass dome. The shuttle lined up on the red flashing lights on the edge of the launch bay doors and flew inside the shuttle port. The launch bay doors closed. David felt a slight jolt when the shuttle set down on the metal deck. The launch control officer restored oxygen to the bay. One of the members of the flight crew opened the exit hatch and extended the boarding ramp. They picked up their gear, followed the crowd of inductees down the aisle, and exited the shuttle.

“Head through that airlock to the lobby and then take the turbo lift down to the bus depot. Your buses should be waiting as we speak,” an Air Force flight attendant standing by the exit hatch said. They headed toward the airlock following the crowd to the lobby while the first group of inductees entered the turbo lifts. Squeezing into a crowded turbo lift, they felt their stomachs drop. The lift seemed to descend forever.

When the turbo lift stopped, they stepped out into another lobby and stepped through a set of metal doors and into the bus depot. Several buses were lined up at a curb. They were long snake-like vehicles with three passenger sections that were set on steel wheels inside a metal track. The track helped the vehicle maintain traction on the lunar surface. A rubber buffer separated the passenger cars. An enclosed boxy tractor set hooked to the passenger cars to pull the bus across the lunar landscape.

They headed to the nearest bus, stepped through a small airlock, and entered the last car on the bus. David found seats at the rear of the car and they settled in for the ride. When the bus filled up with inductees, the inner airlock door of the garage opened. The bus pulled into the massive airlock. It jerked to a stop for a few seconds. The inner doors closed, a hissing sound filled the airlock and the outer doors opened. The bus pulled out onto the main thoroughfare running through the lunar colony. David felt his stomach lurch and for a moment, he thought he was going to get sick. He looked out his side window. People wearing EVA suits shuffled along a pathway near the street. Others entered and exited the various buildings. “It seems like a busy place,” David said.

Paul nodded. “I’ve heard they have some wild underground pubs here.”

“My parents brought me here for a vacation when I was a wee bugger, but I don’t remember much about the trip,” Louis said.

“I could care less. I want to get some sleep. Wake me when we get three,” Alonzo said. They left the lunar colony behind heading across the cratered surface of the moon. David glanced at several buildings off to the left that appeared to be some type of mining operation. Military men in gray digitized urban camouflaged fatigues moved down the aisle. They stopped now and then to talk to the inductees. The NCOs on board seemed warm and friendly with the recruits.

“Where are you guys from?” a young sergeant asked when he stopped by David’s chair. David breathed in the smell of stale beer and tobacco smoke. You almost couldn’t smell it because of the scent of mints that the sergeant was chewing.

“Me and my buddy, Alonzo, are from San Diego.” The Sergeant extended his hand and they shook.

“It’s a lovely city. I served on a surface vessel based out of Dago once. How about you two?” the sergeant said. He nodded at Louis and Paul.

“I’m from bloody old England, but my folks sent me to school in Michigan.”

“I was, stationed outside of London for two years. I never could get used to the rain. How about you?”

“I’m from a little spot in the road called Coldwater Michigan,” Paul said.

The bus crossed over to the dark side of the moon and outside everything went dark. Alonzo noticed some lights in the distance to their left. He saw several buildings setting enclosed in what appeared to be a walled compound. A fork in the trail led in that direction. “What’s that over there? Is that the base?”

The sergeant let out a low chuckle and then grinned. “No, that’s not the base. That’s not a place you want to be. That, my friend, is one of the penal colonies here on the dark side of the moon. We’ve still got ten miles to go before we reach the base.” The Fleet Marine sergeant moved along talking to the other inductees. A few more passed by and stopped to chat.

“Them blokes don’t seem too bad,” Louis said.

Thirty minutes later, the bus pulled up to the main gate at the recruiting depot. A guard inside an atmospherically contained guard shack pushed a button on his console. The electronic gate slid open. The bus pulled onto the grounds of the Marine base. They traveled down the main road heading to a massive steel structure lit up with bright lights.

“Good Lord! That building looks big enough to house an entire city!” Louis said.

“It does. The entire base is in there. It’s atmospherically contained. It has a gravity generator that provides an Earth-like gravity,” the sergeant said. The bus pulled up to a massive set of steel airlock doors. The outer hull of the building was made from black diamond-plated steel. The doors opened, the bus pulled into the airlock and the outer doors closed behind it. The airlock filled with oxygen, the inner doors opened and the bus pulled into the enclosed base. David glanced out his window while the bus traveled down a paved street lined with palm trees. Grass grew alongside the road, within the massive enclosed structure. The place reminded David of one of the city parks in San Diego.

Three-tiered barracks lined one side of the road. An office complex lined the other. Several Quonset huts set off in the distance. The bus stopped at the curb in front of a barracks on their right. The words: Main Receiving Barracks were written on a sign above the roof. The good-natured NCOs riding the bus with the inductees turned into instant assholes. The bus stopped. The good-natured sergeant who had stopped by their chairs to talk headed to the front of the bus.

“On your feet you slimy little worms! Get off my bus! I don’t care which God you pray to! It could be Mohammad, Allah, Baal, or the state! I could give a rat’s ass if you pray or not! You can give your hearts to Jesus if you want to, but for the next thirteen weeks your ass belongs to me!”

***

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Have a glorious day.