At fourteen he had been a peasant boy in Cuba and was tired of that life and that place. He had actually lived in a cardboard-and-corrugated-tin house and his living standards were nonexistent. One day after his mother passed away — who knew, she might have lived with better healthcare — Ronny walked out to the ocean and swam north, hoping to cross the ninety miles of water to the United States. He swam and swam. He swam, floated, and swam again for two days and nights until he could go no further. Ronny could still remember, floating on his back and looking at the night sky, how he thought it would be better to die free in the ocean than as an oppressed peasant. He had done the right thing even if he drowned or was eaten by a shark. The next day — sunburned beyond belief, dehydrated and half dead — he thought he was delirious when he saw land in front of him. He was — it wasn’t land at all. Ronny had been lucky that a charter fishing boat out of Key West spotted him. The odds of that having occurred were ridiculous but he was rescued. God had been with him and Ronny would always thank Him for that.
With a second lease on life, Ronny worked hard to become an American and become accepted by his American peers. A Cuban-American family in Miami took him in and put him into a parochial school where he immediately showed that there was a fine mind in that peasant brain. On his twenty-second birthday — naturalized as an American citizen and with a bachelor’s degree in physics — he joined the Air Force. Those years developed a mindset that soon led him into reconnaissance and flight technologies. He enjoyed it and was good at it and used the opportunity to study graduate level physics at the University of the Air Force. Ronny moved up in the Air Force and by the time he was thirty earned a tour at the then totally “black” organization now known as NRO. While at NRO he completed his doctorate in physics at Virginia Tech.
Ronny retired as a lieutenant colonel, then took a position as a civil servant with the NRO for a second, arguably third, career. He quickly moved up and became the director of AS T. It hadn’t been all easy for him. Being from a foreign background — Cuban no less — his loyalty often came into question by adversaries, and his security clearance investigations always had taken three times longer than normal. But Ronny kept his nose clean and maintained a work ethic that made him the go-to guy for space systems implementation and shut down any of his opposition. Having taken a, provable, chance on swimming to the U.S. also tended to reduce the possibility, in most people’s eyes, that he was an agent. In short, when it came to building space recon systems Ronny had always gotten the job done. Now the DNRO had given him the ultimate challenge — get recon on another planet.
Ronny would get that job done, but he wouldn’t let it interfere with his other tasks either. He felt he had to continuously prove he was superhuman, or at least better than the others. So, no matter what the task before him, Ronny always gave it one hundred percent — even if he was preoccupied with a more daunting and pressing problem. Ronny leaned back in his leather conference room chair and placed his hands behind his head while he tried to focus on his multitasking.
“So you see, Dr. Guerrero, the structural integrity of the antenna booms can dampen out the low frequency platform jitter and the higher jitter the piezoelectric system can handle. It’s our conclusion and recommendation to you that the Phase 0 design is viable and that the program is ready to move forward to a science readiness review and to Phase 1,” the contractor finished in his slow Southern accent.
“That’s very good, Roger. I’ll take that under advisement. If there is nothing else then…?” Ronny looked at his watch and frowned. The contractor actually had about fifteen more minutes scheduled with him so he’d, apparently, sped his brief. Ronny’s support staff took that as a cue to end the meeting and they began closing their notes and stretching.
“Uh, since we’ve got a little more time, just one more thing, Dr. Guerrero, if you please. I’d like to show you an unusual concept that I don’t know if you would be interested in or not, but my hopes are that you will.”
Roger took four copies of the Mars Recon white paper from his double-locked bags and passed them around the room. He waited for a copy to make it to Dr. Guerrero’s hands before he began. Ronny was certain that Roger was trying to gauge the expression on his face. There was no expression. Guerrero had been in the super-secret world long enough to develop a perfect poker face.
“This may sound a little strange at first, but please hear me through on it,” Roger began. “It has come to my team’s attention that the bolometric albedo of Mars appears to be changing. It’s getting shinier and less red. We have data and references here in the white paper to back that claim up — it’s real. The intriguing part is that there is a data run from the Hubble this past cycle that is missing from the public domain. Since the Hubble data is usually white, I find it intriguing that a run on Mars has been made ‘black.’ ”
Roger looked around the room at Guerrero and his aids for any sign that they had prior knowledge of this. Ronny and his team, again, displayed perfect poker faces.
“So, given that the surface of Mars is changing on such a massive scale that the bolometric albedo has been altered, then something major is going on there — probably something unnatural. The plot there on page two shows the required increase of certain compounds and metals in kilograms versus time. There are four different good data points and seven from some unverified Internet data. We then curve-fitted that data and you see it matches a simple population growth model.” Roger paused again.
“The rate of growth is amazing. We believe that it may be a muster point for some alien force. Whether or not that force is friendly or preparing to attack us we have no idea. Based upon that data, we believe it’s advisable to perform reconnaissance of Mars. This is recon that could only be gained by sending a recon satellite configured as a probe. And if it’s an alien force preparing to attack, then time is of the essence.”
Roger paused and Ronny could tell from the expression on Roger’s face that he had been half expecting to be laughed out of the room. There were no smiles, frowns, or comments. The room remained dead calm — just like before a storm. Ronny gave nothing away but the very lack of laughter at the preposterous idea said volumes.
“So,” Roger continued, swallowing nervously, “we have put together a mission architecture concept that could do the job and be ready for launch in five to six months with a four to five month traverse time.”
“Roger,” Ronny began in his thick Cuban accent. “Four months to Mars? I’m not sure I believe that.”
Ronny realized that he had said too much, because Roger smiled in acknowledgement. Roger was a smart guy and the fact that Guerrero didn’t believe the traverse time told Roger that they already had been looking at an interplanetary mission. And Ronny was certain that Roger would surmise that since the NRO had been looking at a Mars mission, something must really be going on with Mars.
“That’s the clever part of this concept, Dr. Guerrero,” Roger said with greater confidence. “If you want to slow down and orbit Mars, it would take longer. But, why orbit? If whatever this phenomenon is has changed the entire planet’s surface, then a fly-by mission is all you need. That allows you to remove the need for braking engines and reduces the throw weight tremendously. Instead of a braking engine, we have two kick motors and therefore we go a lot faster.”
“That’s the answer!” one of the aides in Air Force blues responded excitedly. Guerrero looked at him as if to scold him.