The various engineers estimated that it would be close to two more months until the remaining housing facilities were completed and the additional personnel could start arriving from Earth. Dr. Bergstrom was enjoying his work on the Moon immensely, but his heart ached to see his family. He had hoped that once the new housing structure was completed, he might be able to arrange for his family to move here to be with him. Unfortunately, the answer he was given was “no.” They simply did not have enough room yet to allow people to bring their families with them. Right now, people assigned to the Pegasus Project were expected to serve a one-year term with a 30-day R&R at the six-month mark.
Dr. Bergstrom had been conducting intensive surveys and soil sampling of the Moon, identifying in detail what minerals and resources were located at different points across the lunar surface. Others in his research group were working on designing several heavy factories that would, in time, refine the materials being mined and fabricate additional building materials needed to expand the colony and build additional spacecraft. The construction crew was already hard at work assembling the foundation for multiple new buildings and an adjoining tram system that would link all of the buildings together. It was a massive undertaking, and would take years to complete. Several of the new housing structures were going to be 40 stories in height. The colony would then be able to house around 12,000 people, and would only grow from there.
Heavy deposits of iron, tungsten, copper, magnesium, aluminum and most importantly, water were found in abundance just below the Moon’s surface. There was also Tritium4 and Helium3 isotopes in heavy concentrations. Most of the minerals were relatively close to the growing colony. The long-term goal was to get the various mining operations up and running and build out the factories, refineries, and fabrication facilities needed to make the colony self-sufficient. Eventually, they would be in a position to start constructing equipment for larger space exploration and colonization ships.
Karl enjoyed his work immensely; he was now the world’s leading geologist and the man leading humanity into the stars in search of new minerals and opportunities for humanity to spread beyond Earth. His position had grown beyond just geological work; he was now among the leadership of the colony and a member of the space exploration committee, which was headed by Dr. Peter Gorka, the President’s Chief Scientist. His ideas and suggestions for how America should explore space and what needed to be done to accomplish those goals were being heeded and implemented.
While he felt like he was making a difference for humanity, he felt his family life was starting to suffer immensely. He had been sequestered to work on the Pegasus Project for nearly six years now, only seeing his family for short bursts on weekends, holidays and their yearly vacation. In that time, he had poured his heart and soul into space exploration and mining. While his wife understood his passion and what he was doing for humanity, his children did not. All they knew was that their daddy worked 80 hours a week and was gone for weeks and sometimes months on end. His living on the Colony for a year was really stretching his relationship with his children. His son was seventeen and a senior in high school. He was a smart kid, and all of his classes were now AP classes that he was completing through a dual enrollment homeschooling program with Liberty University. His daughter was sixteen, and like her brother, was also a bit of a prodigy. Both of his kids were well on their way to attending some of the best universities in the world. His son wanted to go into physics, his daughter wanted to be a doctor. He wanted so much to be there for them while they were going through this pivotal time in their lives, but long-distance fatherhood of teenagers was proving to be quite challenging.
Karl was due to head back to Earth in four months, just in time for his son’s eighteenth birthday and graduation from high school. What his son and wife did not know, is that Karl had been working behind the scenes to get his son an internship with Dr. Gorka’s research assistant, Dr. Nikki Travosky. She was scheduled to take his place at the Colony when his one year assignment was completed. Nikki was a leading physicist and was working on developing the next generation in EmDrive propulsion that would allow humanity to explore well beyond the solar system. He was pulling some connections and leveraging his position on the President’s science team to get his son into the MIT Physics program. Because his son had completed so many college credits through his dual enrollment program, he would go to MIT as a sophomore. His internship with Dr. Travosky would give his son an edge over all other students in the same program. He wanted to surprise his son with all of this when he arrived back home in four months. Of course, his wife would kill him once she found out their son’s internship would place him on the lunar surface at the colony, but what an experience it would give his son. He hoped this would do something to bridge the divide that grown between him and his son.
Whose Side are We on?
President Aliko Dangote was starting to grow a bit concerned about his Chinese allies. The recent change in leadership within the Russian Federation had given him pause, and was causing him and some of his military leaders and advisors to question the longer-term feasibility of their relationship with China. With the Allies now focused completely on China, it was only a matter of time until the Chinese economy collapsed and their military was destroyed. The Americans had been attacking dozens of key bridges and damns across the Chinese interior, which was starting to wreak havoc on their ability to govern and maintain control of their population of more than two billion people.
Then there was the war in Africa. The Americans and Europe had not taken an active interest in it just yet, and Dangote wanted to make sure they did not. The Chinese insisted that Dangote continue the war in the Horn of Africa, Central Africa and the Gold Coast. What Dangote himself wanted most was to work on integrating the half of the continent that he currently controlled. The Chinese had been using his soldiers to carry out a genocide of the Horn of Africa; from the reports that he had been receiving from his generals, they were killing nearly everyone that lived in Somalia and Sudan. He tried to concentrate on the bright spots. The war in Cameroon was finally winding down, and his forces had finished off what was left of the government forces there. The war in Nigeria was turning into a stalemate.
President Dangote had been a good soldier. However, he was going to go against his Chinese puppet masters soon. He was going to start working on a peace with the Nigerians after the New Year. His goal was to bring an end to the fighting by February. His forces and the Chinese had two and a half months left to accomplish their tasks before he would unilaterally call an end to the war. He was President of the largest country in the world, but his hold on the country was tenuous at best. On paper, he controlled more than half of the continent; in actuality, he really only controlled the major cities, ports, and mining and oil fields. He needed to produce a functioning government and law and order if he was going to maintain power, and that was not going to happen if his people continued to stay at war.
As Aliko Dangote sat at his mahogany desk in the massive Presidential office, he knew he was going to have to reach out to the Americans soon. He hit the buzzer near his desk for his secretary to respond. A second later a voice came over the speaker, “Can I help you with something, Sir?”