Rocket 01

Gillman/Radiation Fever/1 Ian Gillman

Word Count: 8300

RADIATION FEVER By Ian Gillman

Captain John "Rocket" Robinson sat back in his chair and read the days newspaper headlines, "Radiation fever strikes again, third victim in less than one week.". Rocket, being 6 feet 2 inches tall and of slender build sat in the middle of the leather chair which was clearly meant to house a fellow of more stately proportions. The office of Interplanetary Operations was tucked away in one corner of the seventh floor of the headquarters of the Earth Police Force and, being newly formed, contained very little furniture. Rocket's partner, Sergeant Richard "Dick" Clari sat in a small but padded office chair opposite Rocket and was reading the incoming office mail. To look at the pair of them you would think that it would be impossible to find two dissimilar people. Where Rocket is tall

Gillman/Radiation Fever/2 and thin Dick can best be described as short and fat, Rocket has black hair, Dick is blonde, Rockets deep voice booms throughout the office while Dick has a quiet, unassuming voice. Even their personalities are opposite, Rocket prefers action while Dick usually likes to think things out first. It is just these differences, coupled with their outstanding records with the police department that made Chief Superintendent Robert Gundam pick them for his new command. # In the small confines of the Chiefs office the phone reverberated off the bare walls and filled the room with its harsh ringing. The Chief reached over and picked up the receiver nearly knocking his cup of coffee off the small wooden desk. "Interplanetary Ops, Chief Gundam speaking" "Front desk here Sir, I have a man that insists on speaking to you and nobody else, if you ask me he looks damn scared of something." said the voice at the other end. "Send him up." replied Gundam, "and make sure he knows how to get here, we are a little off the beaten track." "I will get someone to escort him." and with that the guard hung up. Gundam started to clear some of the papers off his desk. "This department is only a week old and already I am buried in papers," he thought as he opened a draw and swept the contents of his desktop into the draw before closing it again, "and I must get a bigger desk." he added as an afterthought. #

Gillman/Radiation Fever/3 The man and his escort entered the office annex and, seeing that there was no secretary behind the desk went straight to the door marked "Chief" and knocked. "Come in" shouted the chief. When the door opened the chief found himself looking at two men, one was very well built, muscular and wearing a guards uniform and the other was less well, built, pale looking and appeared to be very nervous. "Here he is," said the guard pointing to the cowering figure, "he's all yours." at which point he turned on his heels and left the office obviously upset at the fact that he had to spend part of his day shepherding people around the building. "Chief Superintendent Gundam?" the man inquired, cocking his head to one side and looking nervously at the window. "Yes, that’s me. Can I help you?" "Chief Gundam, I know what this radiation fever is all about and I am going to be next." At that moment every alarm in the building suddenly starting screeching as the window of the office burst inward and a large black object bounced across the room spewing a thick cloud of choking black smoke. # Rocket and Dick were in the middle of a discussion about the theory behind magnetic space drives when the chaos started. Rocket, being more of the action hero that Dick, immediately rushed into the secretary's annex. His eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, the sirens almost obliterating his

Gillman/Radiation Fever/4 hearing as he swiftly moved across the room to the Chiefs door. Dick fell backwards off his chair when the alarms went off, such was the surprise and ferocity of the outburst. Laying on his back he took a few seconds to gather himself and to assess the situation. # Rocket opened the door to the chiefs office and stumbled backwards, his eyes and throat burning from the smoke, he heard scuffling noises coming from the blackness within and, taking a deep breath, entered the room. Dick arrived in the secretary's annex just in time to see the figure of Rocket disappear into the smoke that was pouring from the chiefs office. He grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and moved swiftly to the office door, he gripped the extinguisher in one hand, the pin in the other hand, pulled the pin and plunged into the darkness. # Nanmead and Cydors knew exactly who they were after, within two seconds of the smoke grenade going through the window they followed it and, using gas masks with builtin vision enhancers they were able to see the contents of the office almost as clearly as normal. Nanmead landed on his feet and scanned the room, he saw two bodies laying on the floor, one was in Earth Police uniform and was obviously in his late 50's and of normal build, the other body looked like the target they were after. Cydors landed heavily on his side and rolled across the room ending up in a heap by the opposite wall. Staggering slightly he

Gillman/Radiation Fever/5 stood up and was hit in the shoulder by the door to the office as Rocket came rushing in. Rocket felt the door hit something and wheeled round, arms outstretched, to find out what it was. Cydors sidestepped to avoid the flailing arms, turned to face Rocket and pulled his arm back to punch. Dick, not being able to see anything, ran into the back of Cydors and accidentally squeezed the trigger to the fire extinguisher. Nanmead picked up the body on the floor and turned round to see where his partner was, to his shock he saw his partner sandwiched between two other people and something almost liquid like in nature spraying from his back. Dropping the body, Nanmead crossed the room and swiftly hit Rocket across the back of the neck, his body dropped to the floor instantly. Then, grabbing his partner, he bundled him towards the window and made the "lets go" signal. Picking up the targets body once more Nanmead followed Cydors out of the window and onto the rocket scooter hovering just outside. Ignoring gunfire from the ground, seven stories below, Cydors pushed the throttle and the scooter leaped into action. Racing through the streets at high speed, the scooter descended to just above ground level giving the ground personnel almost no time to aim and fire before the scooter was gone round the next corner. Two police scooters joined the chase and Nanmead, having secured the body on the scooter, opened fire with a laser gun. The policeman on the first scooter swerved to the right to avoid the laser fire coming from his quarry and lost control, the scooter hit the ground and burst into flames catapulting its rider many

Gillman/Radiation Fever/6 yards away from the crash. The second scooters rider opened up to full throttle and drew his own weapon but Nanmead scored a direct hit on the scooter which lost power immediately and slid across the ground, the rider barely able to hang on to the wildly bucking machine. # Meanwhile back at Police HQ the chief, Rocket and Dick were coming round in the secretaries annex while the chiefs office was being cleared of the smoke. "I am sorry sir, they got clean away with your visitor." said a junior officer, "We lost them in the side streets just south of here." Rocket looked down at his creased uniform and noticed a few purple stains. "What is this?" he asked one of the guards, pointing at the stain. "That's the purple dye used in our fire extinguishers. It lets us know where they have been used. It also has a small radioactive trace element to enable detection at a distance." Dick, who was listening with interest, suddenly had one of his bright ideas, "I accidentally set of the extinguisher during the fight, I must have sprayed one of them all over. We can use the cities radiation detectors to find them." "Let's go!" shouted Rocket as he jumped up and headed for the door. #

Gillman/Radiation Fever/7 The city radiation detectors showed quite clearly the path that the rocket scooter took. Weaving through the back streets of London the scooter came to a halt outside a big warehouse in the docklands area. Rocket, Dick and a hoard of policemen descended upon the warehouse within minutes and set up a cordon around the building. After about 5 minutes of silence Rocket started pacing up and down, with his face showing signs of anger and his hands clasped behind his back. Dick knew that look, it was one he had seen before and it meant that Rocket wanted action. Dick, meanwhile, had been looking at the warehouse and had come up with a plan. "If we sneak round the left hand side of the cordon," he said to Rocket, "we can approach the warehouse without being seen. Then we can enter through that side door." "Good idea Dick, let's do it." replied Rocket and then, turning to the police captain next to him said, "We are going inside, make sure nobody escapes.". Before the captain could reply Rocket, with Dick in tow, had already started making his way towards the warehouse. # They reached the door without trouble, not a sound was coming from inside. Outside, there was plenty of noise from the police cars, jetcoptors and policemen all round the building. Rocket flattened himself against the building and carefully tried the door handle, it didn't move so he tried to turn the knob using a bit more strength and it slowly moved. Ray gun at

Gillman/Radiation Fever/8 the ready, Rocket pushed the door open. Nothing, no noise, no laser fire, just silence. Feeling a little uneasy, the sweat began to gather on Dicks brow, Rocket ducked down and entered the building. Dick waited a few seconds and then, hearing only silence, followed his boss inside. The warehouse was dark and musty, it was a large spanned structure with rows and rows of large crates forming a maze of passageways. Slowly and carefully they both crept round the crates, not daring to make a noise. Dick pulled out his radiation detector and, setting it to silent mode, began to scan the area. He tapped Rocket on the shoulder and pointed to the left, that was the strongest source of the radiation. # Suddenly Rockets world went dark and he felt a very heavy weight wrap around his shoulders, he collapsed to the floor and could feel an arm wrapping itself round his neck. He fired once, twice but could not get the right angle to hit the body now covering him and pinning him to the floor. Dick reacted a few moments later and, grabbing the man by the neck, proceeded to choke him and pull him off of Rocket. The man let go of Rocket and Dick rolled him onto his stomach, put his knee in his back and told him not to move because a gun was trained on his head. The man made no movements, none at all and did not say a word. In fact, he had been very quiet all through the scuffle and it was Rocket that found the reason why, he was dead.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/9 "He was obviously placed on top of these crates to stop us from finding him but whoever did it did not put him up there properly, they may have been in a hurry when they heard us coming." "He is highly radioactive." commented Dick while pointing the radiation detector at the body. # A swift search of the warehouse by the police turned up a purple stained, radioactive, black uniform, a partially burned piece of paper with the words "M. Olympus" and "Big W" on it and the realization that the dead body was that of the man who was kidnapped that morning from police HQ. The mans body was completely irradiated just like the other victims of the radiation fever. Dick studied the piece of paper intensely, "M. Olympus could mean Mount Olympus on Mars, it's near the old abandoned Mars base 'Mars One' but the 'Big W' has me stumped and how did he know he would die of this Radiation Fever?" "Maybe we will find the answer on Mars?" said Rocket with the "It's time for some spaceflight" look in his eyes. # "We have two problems we have to solve." said Nanmead, sitting back in the old wooden chair he found in the kitchen. "We have to find a way to get to Mars and we have to stop that policeman Rocket Robinson from spoiling our plans." Nanmeads high pitched, crackly voice echoed throughout the empty, abandoned house.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/10 "Yes master." replied the toady Cydors, his narrow, evil eyes shifted from side to side as he rubbed his hands together menacingly. "We have to steal a spaceship capable of reaching Mars from Earth without refueling at any space stations. I know of a place on Mars where we can land undetected. We are very fortunate, that freighter pilot must have thought he was talking to one of his gang members when he told us about the treasure." "Yes we are master, assuming that the story is true." "Of course it is true you imbecile, everybody who was part of that gang has confirmed the story, shortly before dying of the radiation fever of course." his laugh cackled throughout the house. "Now, Cydors, I want you to arrange for Captain Rocket Robinson to have a nasty accident on his way to Mars while I find a suitable spaceship." "What sort of accident did you have in mind?" "Something radioactive in deep space will be fitting, two more victims of the radioactive fever." "It will be a pleasure." smiled Cydors. # "Tower to SP200C" crackled the voice through the headphones. "Go ahead tower" replied Dick, sitting in the copilots seat of the Interplanetary Police spaceship. The ship was sitting on the end of the 5 mile long runway and looked like a fish laying on its side, long, flat and streamlined, perfect for the high speed

Gillman/Radiation Fever/11 atmosphere runs it has to make at the beginning and end of each journey. "SP200C you are cleared for takeoff." "Roger that, SP200C cleared for takeoff, beginning takeoff run." Rocket slowly opened the throttles, the engines went from a gentle low groaning sound through a gentle rumble until they formed a deafening roar. Even inside the sealed and soundproofed cabin the engines still sounded like a whole hoard of trains inside a long tunnel. As the flames leaped from the rear the ship started its long takeoff roll. This particular type of ship could also take off vertically but, in order to conserve fuel and increase payload, the horizontal takeoff is normally used. "Fifty five, four fifty" said Dick as he read out the ground speed and the burn chamber pressure both of which are critical for takeoff. "Sixty seven, four eighty. Seventy two, four eighty." Rocket nudged the throttle forward just a little more. "Eighty five, four ninety one." The rumbling of the tires on the runway mixed with the roaring of the engines as the craft gathered speed down the runway. "One hundred and fifteen, five oh three." Rocket eased back on the control column and the front of the craft groaned as it eased upwards into the air. Balancing the 3000 ton craft on its back wheels while moving at over 100 miles an hour down a runway takes a particular skill and it is a skill that Rocket had learned over the past 15 years flying

Gillman/Radiation Fever/12 freighters, combat fighters and anything else that was assigned to him during his career in the military and then the police force. "One thirty, five one seven." shouted Dick over the top of the noise. Rocket pulled back, hard, and the nose of the craft rose sharply, pointing upwards towards the clouds. The tail of the craft dropped towards the concrete and barely missed scraping the ground as the craft became airborne. "We have lift off." shouted Dick, "Engine temperature and pressure normal, speed one four five and increasing." Dick reached over and pulled a lever, a whirring noise was heard followed by a two thumps, the undercarriage had been retracted back inside the spacecraft. Rocket pulled the control column back further and the spacecraft entered vertical flight. # Engineer John Banner turned and smiled, "The easiest money I have ever made." he thought to himself as he made his way back to his car. "Just place the box on board the craft and press the yellow button, what could be easier?" # Nanmead approached the owner of "The Altus" a sleek, white spaceship standing on its platform at the London Municipal Space Port, "She looks like a fine ship sir." "Yes she does, doesn't she." replied the owner, "She can do the Earth, Jupiter/IO run faster than most ships her size."

Gillman/Radiation Fever/13 "Hmm, that's interesting, how does she do that without making the engines illegal?" "She has a brand new navigation system that can calculate the best trajectory for any given takeoff time down to the nearest second. Would you like me to show you?" Nanmead started to smile and pulled out his gun as he was lead into the airlock. # "Earth control calling SP200C, Earth control called SP200C, come in SP200C." the radio crackled to life as the spaceship reached the midway point between Earth and Mars. "SP200C here, go ahead Earth." replied Dick as he slid back into the copilots seat. "We have a urgent message for Captain Robinson, is he available?" "I will have to wake him up, can you give me the message and I will give it to him?." "I am sorry, Sergeant Clari but this message needs to be delivered to him personally, it is from Chief Superintendent Gundam and it is marked 'urgent'" "OK, let me get him here." Dick rushed back into the main cabin, shook Rocket awake and they both made their way back to the control room. "Earth, this is Captain Robinson, go ahead with your message." "Message begins, from Chief Superintendent Gundam to Captain Rocket Robinson. Two more victims of the radiation fever have been found, one of them was the owner of a spaceship that just

Gillman/Radiation Fever/14 blasted out of London Municipal without clearance or a flight plan and the other was a mechanic at our own spaceport." "Earth, can you get me Chief Gundam on the radio as soon as possible?" "Will do Captain, I can patch him through now." Dick turned to Rocket with a puzzled look on his face. "So far, everybody who has been involved in this case has caught the radiation fever. I am beginning to suspect that it is not an illness at all but..." Rocket never got to finish his sentence for at that moment their whole world turned upside down. # "What's the matter?" asked Chief Gundam, looking at the radio operator intensely. "I don't know sir, one minute we have connection, the next we lose the carrier wave. It's like their radio just stopped transmitting." "Well keep trying to get them and alert all spaceships along their projected flight path to keep a look out for them. We may be too late, I hope they are all right." # Rocket and Dick were flung across the control room as the noise and shockwave of the explosion erupted through the bowels of the ship. Half of the gauges hit the red line, the rest hit zero as parts of the ship were torn away by the blast. The engines flared and died, two of the maneuvering thrusters vented

Gillman/Radiation Fever/15 their fuel into space in an instant causing the ship to tumble end over end and rotate along its own axis. Dick was the first to react and pulled himself to the console, Rocket was only a few seconds behind and, despite the high G forces, they managed to strap themselves into the flight seats and began to asses the situation. "We are in a 2 axis spin, pitch and roll, both positive in direction. Main engines are out, half the control thrusters are also out and we are leaking oxygen." Dick said in a matter of fact business like manner. "Seal off the cabin, with a bit of luck the oxygen is leaking from elsewhere in the ship, I will try to stop the spin." Rockets hands moved over the attitude controls, his training taking over. Both Rocket and Dick knew that the only thing that can save them now is their training, all of those hours spent in the simulators, all of those weeks studying the way rocket ships work and their lives depend upon how much they understood and remembered. "Cabin sealed off sir." said Dick, the formal nature of his speech revealing that his training had indeed taken over. "Cabin pressure is holding steady but the radiation level is off the scale." he added. Rocket was silent, he was feeling the ship, seeing what it could and couldn't do. He made very small movements with his fingers, touching the attitude control thrusters, seeing which ones would respond and which ones would not.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/16 "We have been injured pretty badly." remarked Rocket, "We have lost just over half of the attitude thrusters but I think I can get her back on an even keel. How are the main engines?" "Dead sir, we have plenty of fuel but the high radiation is interfering with the fuel pumps and combustion chamber sensors. We could try and mix the fuel manually but without those sensor readings we run the risk of blowing ourselves sky high. We have enough oxygen left for about 16 hours, unfortunately Mars is 24 hours away." "Have you tried the radio yet?" "Yes, its completely dead, the high radiation and the shock from the explosion must have damaged it." At that instant, the whole cabin was plunged into darkness. # "Have you heard from them yet?" Chief Gundam asked irritably. "No sir, I haven't. I have been trying ever since we lost contact but I have not been able to raise them on the radio." "Well keep trying and alert any ship on or near their last known course to be on the lookout for their ship." "Yes sir, do you think they have caught the radiation fever?" "I don't know what to think at the moment, all I know is that we have lost contact with them somewhere between here and Mars." # The shadows danced across the cabin, every few seconds the sunlight streamed through the cabin windows as the dead ship

Gillman/Radiation Fever/17 tumbled through space. Rocket looked across at Dick, "What's wrong Dick?" "I don't know, we appear to have lost all electrical power." Rocket strained at his seatbelt, his mind wondering what they can do next. "How can we get out of this mess?" he thought to himself, "We are floating through space in a dead, spinning ship. We have no power and therefore no control. We cannot go outside because the spin rate of the ship will throw us off and we have 8 hours less oxygen than we need assuming that the explosion did not knock us too far off course." # "Sir, I have received a report from one of the deep space freighters on a course similar to Captain Robinsons. He says that their instruments picked up a large electromagnetic pulse at about the time we lost contact with them." the radio operator seemed worried and a little strained as he spoke to the Chief. "Well, what does that mean?" rapped the chief. "Usually a large electromagnetic pulse accompanies a radioactive explosion." # Dick suddenly sat up straight, pulled out a pen and a piece of paper and started scribbling something down. "What is it Dick?" "I may have a way out of our situation, do we still have the backup batteries for the radio in storage compartment number three?"

Gillman/Radiation Fever/18 "Yes, I think so but why?" "Good, can you see if you can get them for me, I will need both batteries. I have to take this console apart." Rocket, feeling a little puzzled, made his way over to the storage compartment and retrieved two batteries that looked like car batteries. Dick was busy taking the main console to pieces and connecting parts together. "Good, now we need to reach the outer hull, can you start ripping through the insulation?" ordered Dick, even though Rocket outranked him. At times like this Rocket knew that Dick, with his technical knowledge, was really in charge. Once Rocket and Dick had finished they had a pile of electronics and a long cable running to the hull of the ship. "So what does it do?" asked Rocket, interested in knowing the basics but not too concerned with the technical details of the device. "It's a basic radio transmitter, like Marconi developed in the early 20th century. No tuning, it just sends out static on a broad frequency range so we can only use Morse code. Crude but effective." Rocket looked at the pile of wires and electronic components and shook his head while Dick started to send "SOS" in Morse. # "Sir, we may have something." the radio operator sounded excited. "What is it?" asked Chief Gundam as he dashed across the room.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/19 "The cruise liner 'Stellar Majesty' is reporting hearing radio static on all bands. This would be normal except that the static is heavier than usual and it seems to be spelling out SOS in Morse code." "That's probably them, tell the 'Stellar Majesty' to get a fix on the signal and then, if possible, to rescue whoever is in trouble." "Yes sir." # Nanmead was angry, his eyes were narrow, his lips were thin and his overall posture signified that something was wrong. "I give you one simple task, get rid of Rocket, that is all I asked and you failed me." "I am sorry master, I do not know what happened. I had the bomb planted on board the spaceship in the right place and it went off on schedule." "I never should have trusted you, I should have done it myself then we wouldn't have to worry about him any more." "I am sorry master, I will do better next time." "You had better, otherwise it will be you who is next for the radiation fever. Now we have to work out what to do to get rid of him again. He will probably track our landing to here at the old Mars base so let's leave him a little surprise." Nanmead laughed out loud as he turned and left the room. #

Gillman/Radiation Fever/20 Rocket and Dick left the cruise liner 'Stellar Majesty' that had picked them up from their spacecraft to a hail of flash bulbs and shouted questions. Their rescue from the crippled spaceship had been leaked to the press by a reporter on board the liner who was on vacation. They were met by a representative of the Mars police force who ushered them away in a hover car. "We have had two incidents of radiation fever in the past two days. Both of the victims were found in an abandoned warehouse near the spaceport. I took the opportunity to run some background checks on them and came up with something interesting so I contacted earth and managed to get the records of everyone who had the fever on Earth." "What did you find?" asked Dick, clearly interested in this aspect of the case. "I found that all but one of them used to be involved in a criminal gang known as 'The Wizards' that operated on the outer worlds." "Could ‘The Wizards’ be the 'Big W' we found on that piece of paper?" asked Rocket. "Could be." replied Dick, "But what about 'Mount Olympus' that was also on that piece of paper? We will want to check that out soon." "Also," continued the Mars policeman, not liking the interruption one bit, "the day before we had the first victim of radiation fever we had a spaceship arrive in orbit with no identification and no clearance. The spaceship disappeared on

Gillman/Radiation Fever/21 its first orbit and we assume it landed at the old abandoned Mars base on the other side of the planet. We have not sent a team to investigate because we are stretched to the limit on manpower anyway without sending people halfway round the planet chasing spaceships." "We are a little understaffed ourselves." said Rocket, turning to look at Dick who started to smile. "One other thing," said the policeman, "two old friends of our police force, Nanmead and Cydors, have shown up. They were spotted in the vicinity of the two radiation fever victims shortly before their demise. Here are the files on them." Dick took a look at the profiles of the two men and matched them instantly with the descriptions of the two people that broke in to the HQ building and stole their only witness to this case. “Rocket, I think we are onto something here. These are the people that broke in to HQ last week.” “OK, you seem to have a handle on this case Dick. I want you to check out Mount Olympus. Go there and find out all you can, it must have something to do with the case. I will check out this missing spaceship at the old Mars base. Luckily the two are close by each other so we can take the same transport out to the area, you can drop me off and then pick me up when you are done.” # "Nanmead and Cydors are two nasty pieces of work." commented Dick as he read their files. Rocket nodded, he was busy concentrating on flying the rocket plane through the

Gillman/Radiation Fever/22 valleys in the mountain range they had encountered on their journey to the old Mars base and Mount Olympus. The rocket plane was specially built to operate in the thin atmosphere of Mars. Its wings were long, fat and swept back at a very acute angle. On earth the wings would have snapped off at these speeds but, in the thin atmosphere, they provided the lift necessary to keep the aircraft in the air. "They are both responsible for a whole string of crimes and were the head of a large crime syndicate on Jupiter/IO until they were nearly caught by the authorities. They vanished for a few years showing up on Mars where they set up another crime syndicate. This one, however, was broken up by the Martian authorities, they were imprisoned and then, on their release, were told never to return to Mars again." "Here we are." said Rocket, "This is my stop." He converted the craft from forward flight to a hover and made a gentle landing on the Martian soil. # Rocket watched from the surface as Dick lifted off and set course for Mount Olympus in the distance. "Well," he thought, "I had better put up the emergency shelter. If Dick doesn't get back I will need it to survive, the oxygen in this spacesuit will run out in six hours time." Rocket erected the small, dome tent style construction and put the spare oxygen bottles inside it. #

Gillman/Radiation Fever/23 Dick settled down at the controls and flew to the foothills of the mountain. Mount Olympus is larger than any mountain on earth and towers far above the Mars landscape. "I wish I knew what I was looking for." thought Dick as he began his survey. # Rocket approached the main entrance to the large domed structure known as the 'Old Mars Base'. It was the first permanent base on another planet and it consisted of seven research scientists and all their equipment. Much like the scientific bases on the South Pole, this base had to have everything flown in from Earth. Once the permanent structure of Mars City was completed most of the research performed at the old base could be performed equally well in the comfort of the new city. Finally, twenty five years ago, the last scientists left the old base and it has not been used since. There has been talk in the Mars parliament about turning it into a hotel for visitors to Mount Olympus but so far nobody has been interested in the project. The dome looked like it had not been touched in a very long time but there was something about the main door that made Rocket stop. There were footprints outside the door, all over the place, as if a group of people had been in and out of the doorway many times and in all directions. Sensing a fight ahead, Rocket eased his ray gun from its holster and approached the door. He activated the door opening mechanism and threw himself against the side of the building in anticipation of what might follow. The door opened and then there was silence, he

Gillman/Radiation Fever/24 took a quick look around the edge of the door and saw a long, straight, narrow corridor with another door at the end of it. "Must be the airlock." he thought to himself as he slowly and cautiously entered. Rocket examined the control panel near the other door and pressed a few buttons. The outer door closed and the inner door opened immediately revealing that the oxygen atmosphere inside the dome must have left some time ago and that the air inside is not breathable.

Rocket slowly approached the

inner door and looked round the corner both left and right. He saw an empty corridor, curving slightly with the side of the dome and no sign of anybody else. There were footprints on the floor that lead off to the right and so he followed them. Rocket continued to follow the footprints along the corridor and round several corners, heading towards the center of the dome. # Suddenly, from behind him, Rocket felt the heat from a laser blast just miss his head, he turned and fired from the hip. The man that shot at him fell instantly as Rockets shot hit him in the chest. Another man popped his head out from round the corner and Rocket picked him off with one shot. Then a grenade was thrown and rolled towards Rockets feet. Not knowing how long he had before the explosion, Rocket dived round the next corner and rolled to a stop. The grenade went off and pieces of the casing bounced off the walls, the smell of gunpowder began to fill the air. Once again, the corridor became alive with laser blasts and Rocket returned fire hitting another person before he

Gillman/Radiation Fever/25 had to retreat round the next corner. This time he was ready for them and felled four of them as they came after him, but the fifth person managed either a lucky or accurate shot that hit Rocket in the shoulder. His suit immediately sealed the hole but the shot had done its damage and Rocket fell to the floor, losing consciousness. # Slowly opening his eyes, Rocket saw the interior of what looked like an abandoned science laboratory with rows of benches bolted to the floor. "So we are finally awake." the voice echoed throughout the room, a high pitched, cackling voice. "I suppose you want to know where you are Captain Robinson." said as more of a statement than a question. "Well, my friend, you are inside a viral research laboratory and we have activated the emergency seal that would be used if there was an accident with a deadly virus. In layman’s terms, you are trapped inside a hermetically sealed room with no way out and about 15 minutes of oxygen left."

Rocket could see several people standing outside the window, one of them held a microphone and looked thin and boney. "So you are Nanmead, the leader of this gang. I must say that you look even uglier in person that you do in your case files." "Oh yes, very funny my friend, make every word count because they will be your last."

Gillman/Radiation Fever/26 "You will never succeed, even now my partner Dick is on Mount Olympus looking for what you are so keen to get your hands on." said Rocket using a strong, defiant tone. "What? Oh, I see, ha ha ha, so you found the piece of paper I thought I had burned. Oh what a fool you are, are you not familiar with the French language? M. Olympus is Mademoiselle Olympus, daughter of the miner that buried the treasure and the only one who knows where it is. She lives here on Mars and once we have her we will all be rich beyond our wildest dreams." Nanmead threw his hands up and the people around him cheered wildly. "Now we must leave you, Captain Robinson, because we have a lot of work to do. It is a pity that I will not be around to see your final demise but sometimes we must put work before pleasure." with those parting words Nanmead and his gang turned and left. Rocket sat up and began to look around the room trying to find a way out. The windows and door were sealed and locked and the cupboards and drawers were bare. Rocket checked his air supply and found that he had perhaps one minute of oxygen remaining. # Nanmead, Cydors and the other gang members left the dome and made their way to what appeared to be a large rocky outcrop. The men split up into groups and each group started to remove a rock colored piece of canvas to reveal a sleek looking spaceship, the one that Nanmead stole on Earth. Once everybody

Gillman/Radiation Fever/27 was on board the ship took off in a huge cloud of Martian dust and headed off in the direction of Mars City. # Rocket was on his last breath, he could feel the mask being sucked towards his face as he tried to breath in, his chest tightened and a sharp, stabbing pain cut across it as he tried to inhale a vacuum. Rocket reached up and removed the straps that held the breathing apparatus in place, "The thin Martian air will kill me but it might be less painful." he thought. Just then one wall of the laboratory suddenly disintegrated in a cloud of dust. Rocket was knocked backwards with the force of the explosion as pieces of the wall went flying past him. Dick rushed into the room carrying a spare oxygen tank, he kneeled down next to Rocket, took Rockets mask off and replaced it with the mask connected to the new oxygen supply. "Are you OK, Rocket?" asked Dick, "I have got to get you back to the ship." Dick picked up Rocket and staggered back through the hole he had made in the wall. On their way back to the ship Rocket started to recover. "Am I glad to see you Dick, what happened back there?" "I had some explosives left over from my geological survey of the mountain so I used them to reach you. As I was coming back to the dome I saw a huge cloud of dust and a spaceship like the one stolen from Earth taking off. I thought you might be in trouble so I flew here at top speed and followed the footprints to the laboratory."

Gillman/Radiation Fever/28 "Well I am glad you decided to come back when you did, if you had been earlier you would have run into Nanmead and his gang and if you had been any later I would have been dead." During the flight back to Mars City Rocket outlined what Nanmead had told him about M. Olympus and Dick got on the radio to warn the Mars Police that a kidnapping was about to take place. # As Rocket and Dick disembarked from the rocket plane they were met by a representative of the Mars police force. "Sirs," he said, "I have some bad news for you, Michelle Olympus has gone missing and nobody knows where she is. We have searched her apartment but cannot find any clues as to her whereabouts. We also detected an unauthorized orbital launch from a place just outside the southern dome. It appeared to be the ship that vanished when it arrived yesterday." "That's them," shouted Rocket, "it's got to be them. They kidnapped M. Olympus and left to find the treasure they are after." Rocket turned to the Mars policeman, "We need to have our spaceship ready for takeoff as soon as possible." "Yes sir", replied the policeman, "She will be ready within the hour." # Rocket pushed the throttle lever forward and the ship lurched off the landing pad. Rocket wasted no time in getting the main engines online and getting the ship into orbit. Then,

Gillman/Radiation Fever/29 based on the last know trajectory of the stolen ship, he blasted out of orbit and started to try to find Nanmead and his gang. "They seem to be heading for the outer planets." commented Rocket. "I would have thought so too but on the course we are on we will not intercept any of the outer planets. The closest we will get is about 67 million miles from Pluto. If they kept on this course they would have already entered the asteroid belt, maybe we have lost them?" "No we haven't, I can feel it, they are out there in front of us somewhere." said Rocket with determination. It was at times like this that Dick knew to trust his partners instincts, in this matter they were right more often than they were wrong. # Nanmead put the ship down on the asteroid very gently which was quite a feat considering the asteroid was tumbling about all three axes. Once it had touched down the main door opened and several men in spacesuits jumped out and secured the landing gear. The gravity on the asteroid was so low that the slightest movement would cause the ship and the asteroid to part company. "Now we dig." announced Nanmead, "Let's get our spacesuits on and become wealthy." The rest of the gang began to cheer once more. # "That's them, down there." called Rocket, pointing at a small asteroid far in the distance.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/30 "How do you know?" inquired Dick. "I saw a flash of light, it must have been the sun reflecting of their spaceship." "Or it could have been a flat rock." added Dick, "But we should check it out just in case." This was the third time Rocket had spotted what he thought was the ship and Dick was beginning to doubt Rockets instincts on this occasion. As they got closer it was clear through binoculars that this was the ship they were after and not a flat rock or a mining ship, the Captain of the last mining ship they found was very nice considering they had nearly collided with his ship as it was taking off. "Let's get out the spacesuits and rocket packs, we need to arrive unnoticed and this ship is too big." Rocket maneuvered the spaceship to the other side of one of the larger asteroids in the vicinity. Dick started suiting up and attaching the bulky backpack to his spacesuit. Once Dick had left the airlock, Rocket followed. They had to exit separately as the airlock was very small and the backpacks were very large. Slowly and carefully they both eased the power controls and floated upwards from the surface of the asteroid. They could not completely hide themselves from the criminals because the criminals asteroid was rotating and at some point they were facing their target. "Look at that!" exclaimed Dick, "When the asteroid is at the right angle it looks like a big W." Unfortunately, just at the time Dick pointed towards the asteroid one of the criminal gang on the surface decided to look upwards and saw something moving.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/31 He stared for a few seconds before calling one of the others over to double check what he saw. The two criminals drew their laser guns and began firing. Unless you are used to the sensation, space has no depth perception and you have no idea how far away an object is because you have nothing to compare it with. The criminals realized all too late that their targets were people and that they were nearly on top of them. Rocket, still firing from the hip, landed squarely on the shoulders of one of the men. Dick, missed his target and hit the ground directly behind him. Turning quickly, Dick fired at point blank range and saw the man clutch his stomach and collapse in a heap. # The asteroid came alive with laser fire as the rest of the gang realized that they had company and that it was very unfriendly. Rocket and Dick returned fire and used their rocket backpacks to good effect. Within seconds it was clear that Rocket and Dick were trained in how to use laser guns. "Arrgh" cried Dick. Rocket turned just in time to see Dick float away, rotating end over end. "Dick, Dick." shouted Rocket but he received no reply. Feeling even more determined, Rocket opened the throttle on the rocket pack and charged towards the remaining criminals. One by one they fell to his accurate laser blasts until there were only three left and those three ran back into the spaceship, one of them being pushed and shoved by the other two. Rocket landed back on the asteroid and removed the rocket pack, he would not

Gillman/Radiation Fever/32 need it in the spaceship and it would only get in the way. After checking that his laser gun had enough charge left for a good battle he entered the spaceship through the main hatch which, curiously enough, had not closed. Rocket guessed correctly that he would find all three people in the control room and moved swiftly through the cabin towards the front of the spaceship. The ship was designed like an airliner with a long body and the cockpit at the front end. Without warning Cydors jumped out from behind one of the passenger seats and knocked Rocket to the floor. Rocket raised one of his legs and kicked Cydors in the stomach, sending him flying in this low gravity environment. Not put out by this, Cydors kicked off one of the walls and dived headfirst into Rocket, who could not move out of the way in time. Rocket threw a punch and hit something soft, Cydors moaned and swung his arm wildly but Rocket ducked in time and avoided the blow. Suddenly, Cydors gave a groan and slumped to the floor, Rocket turned and saw Nanmead with a strange gun and a look of horror on his face. In front of Nanmead stood another figure, this one had dark black hair, dark eyes and a Mediterranean complexion. The woman looked visibly distressed and on the verge of fainting. Rocket immediately threw himself at Nanmead, knowing that if he got a chance to use that gun again it would be the end of Rocket Robinson. Nanmead sidestepped Rockets advance but Rocket managed to swipe the gun from his hands. Nanmead panicked and started to run for the airlock. Rocket ran after him but did not reach the inner door

Gillman/Radiation Fever/33 in time, as it closed Rocket could see the sneer on Nanmeads face and the look of triumph in his eyes. By the time Rocket got through the airlock and outside he was just in time to see Nanmead tumbling through space wearing the rocket pack that Rocket had discarded earlier. # The rescue ship arrived after a couple of hours and Rocket was relieved to find that Dick was on board. He had been picked up by the ship using the automatic homing beacon built into the spacesuit. Dick was wearing a bandage across his shoulder and a smile on his face. "So what was the treasure?" asked Rocket. Michelle Olympus replied, "The treasure was a large amount of gold bullion that had been hidden on this asteroid by my father. The gold comes from a bank robbery and had been hidden here just before the robbers had been captured. My father never told me what the numbers he asked me to remember were, all I knew was that I could never write them down and that I had to remember them because they would make me wealthy one day. You cannot imagine how many banks I contacted thinking it was an account number. It turned out to be an orbital element set for the asteroid." "Well, miss, you have helped recover some stolen money and break up a potentially dangerous criminal gang." said Dick. "What about the radiation fever? Nanmeads sidekick, Cydors, seems to have died from it." asked Rocket once more.

Gillman/Radiation Fever/34 "Well," replied Dick, "without seeing the gun I cannot know for sure but I suspect it was generated by a projectile launched from a gun. the projectile would penetrate the body, deliver its radioactive cargo and then dissolve leaving no trace of its existence. The radiation would spread throughout the body giving the impression of having been there before death instead of just after it. Some organs of the body continue to function long after death and they helped spread the radioactivity." "What happened to their leader?" asked Michelle. "The rocket pack only had 15 seconds worth of fuel left in it, I suspect he is still floating around somewhere, nobody has managed to locate him yet and we may never find him, space is too big to find something once you lose it." "Unless you find a girl who is good with numbers." laughed Michelle. END