Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates

THE TOM SWIFT INVENTION ADVENTURES

TOM SWIFT

AND THE ASTEROID PIRATES

BY VICTOR APPLETON II

This unauthorized tribute is based upon the original TOM SWIFT JR. characters.

As of this printing, copyright to The New TOM SWIFT Jr. Adventures is owned by SIMON & SCHUSTER

This edition privately printed by RUNABOUT © 2011
www.tomswiftlives.com

"OUTPOST to
Sky Queen
. Looks as if the storm on Venus is getting worse!"

The message came crackling through the predawn darkness to Tom Swift aboard his Flying Lab as it streaked through the upper stratosphere, winging south at Mach-plus speed.

"Can you make out any details through the electronic telescope?" Tom radioed back.

"Not too clearly, Skipper," the radioman responded from the Swift Enterprises space station 22,300 miles distant. "According to the astronomy team, the planet’s cloud cover seems to be in a state of terrific upheaval."

Bud Barclay, the
Queen’s
copilot and Tom’s closest friend, turned anxiously to the crewcut blond youth at the controls. "Tom, does this mean our Venus probe will be scrubbed?"

The two fliers, both veteran astronauts despite their scant years, had been looking forward eagerly to piloting the first interplanetary space mission, an orbital probe of Earth’s mysterious near-neighbor.

"Could be." As he spoke, Tom’s blue eyes ranged over the bank of special recording instruments in the cabin of the giant research plane. "If Dad’s predictions are correct, the radiation may be too intense just now."

"Come on, genius boy! That Inertite coating on the
Challenger
will stop anything!"

"That’s not the point," was Tom’s reply. "We worked out a long itinerary of instrumental studies of the Venusian atmosphere. The atmospheric turbulence and static-charge effects would make them impossible."

Bud understood and nodded, deeply disappointed. Months before he had participated in an earlier mission to Venus that had failed en route. The prospect of a new voyage on Tom’s huge
Challenger
spaceship, propelled across the space void by its bank of repelatron force-beams, had softened the blow. "Maybe I’m a jinx," Bud muttered.

"Never mind! Let’s concentrate on our next trip—the one that starts in fifty minutes."

Muscular, dark-haired Bud flashed a hopeful grin at his pal. "Right. And it’s in the right direction, too—straight up!"

Carrying a small group of atmospheric researchers aboard, the
Sky Queen
was headed for the Swift space-launch facility on tiny Fearing Island off the coast of Georgia. Here Tom and Bud would mount the skies aboard a special vehicle, Tom’s newest invention. Called the Extreme Altitude Instrumental Platform, the XAIP would bear them to the very edge of space, where Tom would test out its array of sensitive instruments. The purpose of the project, which had been developed by Grandyke University, was to make difficult, valuable observations of Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Presently Tom announced over the Flying Lab’s intercom that landing was imminent. "There’s the capsule," Bud remarked, gazing down at the thumb-shaped islet through the
Queen’s
downsloping view window. "They’ve got it all lit up. But when do they bring out the big bag?"

Tom chuckled. "Hey, pal, I’m going to cut out my explanations to you if you’re not gonna pay attention! We
generate
the balloon-bag ourselves, from the capsule."

"Oh yeah. Right." Tom’s XAIP was a remarkable vehicle of radical design. There had been extreme-altitude manned research balloons before, but the XAIP was to be lifted by an enormous bag that could not be seen—and contained nothing!

The silver
Sky Queen
hovered above the island airfield for a moment on its bank of jet lifters, then descended like an elevator for a smooth landing. The skyship’s main hatchway was less than one hundred feet from the XAIP capsule, which was shaped like a broad, truncated cone resting upon its base. Its slanting sides bristled with antennas and detection instruments.

As the passengers emerged and made their way down the Flying Lab’s extensible ramp-way, one of the researchers, Dr. Williamton, turned to speak to Tom. "So that’s the XAIP! But I’m afraid I missed part of your briefing at the University, Tom. How does it work? That is—what lifts it up?"

The young inventor smiled. "It’s basically a kind of super-balloon. We have a mechanism that produces and extrudes a shell of filaments, each one smaller than the nucleus of an atom, made of a unique substance we discovered called Inertite."

"Oh yes—from the African mountain."

"That’s right, Mount Goaba. The filaments shape themselves into an ultrafine ‘webbing’ that doesn’t interact with light waves but blocks molecule-sized particles. The shell is very rigid, but weighs almost nothing."

"And that’s your balloon bag," said Williamton. "I suppose you fill it with helium?"

Tom shook his head. "We don’t fill it at all, Doctor. As the shell expands without admitting air, the inside remains a vacuum. To counteract the air pressure outside, we use several directional repelatrons tuned to the composition of the atmosphere. In other words, we push it back."

"But look, Skipper," interrupted Bud, who stood listening nearby at the foot of the rampway. "Why do you need that invisible bag at all? Couldn’t the repelatrons create a big vacuum-bubble by themselves?"

"Sure enough," responded his friend. "But the resultant buoyancy, which involves a pressure differential pushing against a resistant surface, would only have the surface of the capsule to press against. Up in the thin upper atmosphere that’s not enough lift-force. The Inertite-filament shell vastly increases the surface area."

"Well," stated Bud, "it was a good question, anyway."

"Sure was, flyboy!"

Tom and Bud accompanied the team of scientists to the nearby control blockhouse, then returned to the XAIP and climbed aboard. After a final check of the readouts, and having verified with the Fearing control tower that the local skies were clear, Tom pulled the lever actuating the device that spun out the Inertite filaments. "We’re getting lift," he reported to Bud. "Weight dropping on the ground struts."

There was no countdown. Within a minute, the XAIP took to the air, accelerating vertically as the balloon shell expanded.

The vault of starry sky was immobile around them. The only sign of motion was the Atlantic horizon as it slowly changed from straight line to curve. The XAIP capsule didn’t even rock, stabilized by an invention of Tom’s called the gravitex.

The youths knew that their ascent would take nearly an hour. They chatted and bantered, and Tom began to describe a project he had been planning. Bud threw a hopeful look at his friend. "A space cruise?"

"No—and yes," Tom said. "I’m planning to set up a solar observatory on Nestria to try unraveling the mysteries of the sun’s radiation and its effects on other bodies in the solar system."

The phantom satellite Nestria, sometimes called Little Luna, was Earth’s second moon, a small asteroid which had been moved into orbit around the earth at an altitude of about fifty thousand miles. Tom had led a space expedition to claim the asteroid for the United States, and the Swifts had established a permanent base there with personnel to staff it. At the invitation of the U.S., other nations had also joined the scientific colony.

Bud, excited over the new project, began peppering Tom with questions. But suddenly the copilot stiffened in his seat and pointed off to starboard!

"Jetz! What’s that over there? A rainbow at night?"

A weird, filmy band of red, yellow, and green light was sweeping across the jet-black sky.

Tom’s eyes, too, widened at the amazing spectacle. Then suddenly he chuckled! "Relax, pal. It’s a natural phenomenon called airglow, caused by the reactions of oxygen and sodium in the upper atmosphere. This is the first time we’ve had a grandstand seat to the show."

"Whew!" Bud settled back in relief. "For a minute I thought I was going loopy from break-off!"

Though neither Tom nor Bud had ever succumbed to "break-off," both boys knew about the giddy feeling of detachment from the earth sometimes experienced by jet pilots when flying at high altitudes. "Fat chance of that ever happening to an old space-hopper like you," Tom reassured his friend.

"Boy, I hope not! But getting back to business," Bud went on, "what’s causing all this fuss on Venus?"

"Same thing that caused that airglow—a flare-up on the sun," Tom replied. "As you know, there’s a constant solar wind of charged particles blowing outward from the sun into interplanetary space."

"Right. You used it in your solartron and the Space Kite. See, I
do
remember your lectures!"

Tom grinned. "Then you remember what happened when we were testing the Space Kite, the cosmic storm that fouled us up. Every so often the sun shoots out an especially hot gust of those particles—or plasma, as the stuff is called. Dad’s been making a spectroscopic study of Venus’s atmosphere. He figured that periodic conditions in the cloud cap were so unstable right now that the next gust of plasma might trigger a violent reaction."

"And he called the shot just right, hmm? Tough luck for us."

Tom nodded. "It’s beginning to look that way." He fully shared his chum’s disappointment at the likely postponement of the scientific adventure.

Presently Tom announced that the ascent of the XAIP had reached its highest point in the uppermost reaches of the ionosphere. Bud watched as Tom pressed a master control button to start recording the instrument readings. The capsule’s equipment for the flight included a rubidium vapor magnetometer, radiation counters, stacks of nuclear emulsions, automatically operated cloud chambers, and various specialized sensor devices provided by the Grandyke University team.

"That solar tantrum must be having a real effect on the earth’s ionosphere," Bud commented, scanning several of the instrument dials.

"Sure is," Tom agreed. "That’s one of the things we’re studying. In fact, it throws the planetary magnetic field, which extends out further than the moon’s orbit, way out of kilter. Right now the earth is getting showered with all sorts of ― "

The young inventor broke off abruptly, a startled expression on his face.

"What’s wrong?" Bud asked, alarmed. He knew it took a lot to startle his adventurous comrade!

"Up there at eleven o’clock!" Tom gasped, pointing out the domelike cabin window. "That burst of light!"

Bud’s jaw dropped open in astonishment as he twisted around to see the phenomenon to which Tom was referring. A small starburst in the darkness at first, strange in color, the patch of light was growing larger by the moment. It looked like it was slowly spreading out into a sizable glowing fireball.

"Good grief! What is it?" Bud murmured in awe. "A meteor?"

Tom shook his head. "If it were falling into the earth’s atmosphere, it would show up as a streak of light from this height."

"Then what—a supernova?"

"Couldn’t be." The young inventor hesitated. "You know, Bud, if it didn’t sound crazy, I’d say that’s a thermonuclear explosion out in space!"

"A
nuclear explosion!
" Bud stared at his friend. "You mean, like a hydrogen bomb?"

"I don’t know," Tom said with a baffled look. "But notice how the patch of light is spreading. That’s exactly what would happen to an atomic fireball in a vacuum, where it wouldn’t be held in by the counterpressure of the air."

Tom paused long enough to throw a glance at the bank of instruments, then gave a whistle.

"Man alive! We’re getting some kind of radiation already!" the young inventor cried. "Look at those counters! They’re going crazy! And so’s the magnetometer!"

"Maybe the explosion, or whatever it is, was touched off by the solar outburst," Bud suggested tentatively. "Could those particles from the sun have triggered a reaction in a cloud of micrometeorites?"

"Maybe. I doubt it," Tom replied. "But Bud, that’s not what worries me. Look!—you can still make it out through the light of the blast."

"Hunh? Make
what
out?"

"Nestria!
That space explosion took place right next to Little Luna!
"

TOM and Bud exchanged fearful glances. If the burst of deadly energy had taken place too close to the scientific installation on Nestria, the entire base crew could have been affected—even wiped out!

Tom snatched up the microphone and radio-commed the wheel-shaped space outpost. Established in part for international television transmission, the space station was line-of-sight reachable from any location across half the earth.

"
Sky Haven. This is Horton.
"

"Glad I reached you, Ken. This is Tom. Are you watching that burst of light?"

The voice of Ken Horton, commander of the space outpost, reported: "
We sure are, Tom! The observatory crew up here is in a tailspin trying to figure out this thing. Any idea what’s causing it?
"