Moving DayMoving Day by Michael Sweeney
  The main entrance loomed ahead, large and forbidding. Kile clutch The 
  satchel tightly and wiped The sweat from his palm on his pant leg. The car 
  moved slowly down The small tunnel to The door into The facility. 
  Kile breathed deeply, trying to slow his speeding heart. As the car 
  came within range of the large metal doors the driver slowed to a crawl. 
  Kile stared straight ahead, paying no mind to the armed guard who approached 
  the vehicle. 
  The guard bent over and rapped on the glass window. Carefully, Kile 
  reached out and lowered the window. 
  "May I see your identification please, sir?" the guard requested. Kile 
  handed the man his pass. The guard took the pass and stood straight to 
  inspect it. The plastic card bore a picture of Kile and a series of fine 
  lines. The guard pulled a small black box from his belt and ran it over the 
  thin card. The box beeped and its monitor glowed green. The guard returned 
  to card and motioned to the other guards. 
  "Your cleared, sir. Go on through." 
  Kile took a deep breath. "Thank you, private." 
  The guard stepped away from the car as it pulled forward through the 
  parting doors. Kile had to control his breathing. He had not realized he 
  had been holding his breath. If he wasn't careful he'd hyper ventilate. 
  The car drove from the large doors to the building's entrance. When 
  the vehicle stopped Kile opened the door and stepped out. He held the 
  satchel firmly. A clink of metal rose from the satchel. Kile glanced down 
  at the shiny steel of the handcuff securing the satchel to his arm. He 
  grimaced nervously and started up the main steps. The large doors open 
  before him and he stepped in to the lobby. 
  The space before him was enormous. The ceiling rose fifty feet above 
  him. The far wall was twice that distance. 
  A scale model of the facility rose high into the air in the middle of it 
  all. The model was taller than Kile. While Kile had been informed of the 
  proportions of the place, he was still awed. 
  He reached into his pocket with his free hand. A handkerchief was 
  produced and he gingerly mopped his brow. This was not sitting well with 
  his stomach. He was not used to the whole deal and was beginning to show 
  The strain. 
  There was suddenly a man standing before him. Kile jumped slightly 
  when the man addressed him. 
  "Minister Kile, I presume?" 
  Speechless, Kile merely nodded. 
  "I am Doctor Franje, the administrator of this facility." the Doctor 
  followed Kile's gaze to The large model. "I see you like our little display.. 
  Nice, eh?" 
  "Its fantastic. It gigantic. I never dreamed." the Minister gasped, 
  his tongue finally loosened. The Doctor smiled. 
  "And soon it will be a reality." The Doctor shifted to face the model. 
  "A dream of man will be brought to its culmination." 
  Kile noticed that he'd stopped breathing again and quickly gulped a 
  lungful of air. He sputtered slightly and coughed. The Doctor turned to 
  him and frowned slightly. 
  "Yes, I'm sorry about that. It seems the air reclamation units are 
  clogging from the dust of drilling. If you want to wear a mask, I can get 
  you one." He said. 
  "Yes, please, that would be fine. My lungs have a hard enough time as 
  it is." The minister choked out. 
  The Doctor took the Minister by the arm and led him to a reception 
  desk. He asked the man behind the desk for a visitors mask. The man pulled 
  a small blue breathing filter from under the desk. Kile pulled the elastic 
  over his head and the mask fit snugly. Immediately he felt better. 
  The Doctor thanked the man behind the desk and ordered the doors be 
  opened. Kile looked over to the large metal doors to the left of the desk. 
  They did not move. Behind and to the right of the desk the wall slide away 
  revealing a passageway. Kile was slightly startled. The Doctor walked 
  toward the opening. Kile followed. 
  As the two men entered the hall, the door slide closed behind them. 
  "What's the deal with the fake doors?" Kile said through the mask. The 
  Doctor slowed slightly. 
  "Those lead to a different section." The Doctor answered. Kile 
  frowned, he suspected something else, but remained silent. 
  "How has the construction come along, as planned?" he asked instead. 
  "Oh, quite. Even better. We are a week and a half ahead of schedule!" 
  the Doctor enthused. Kile was struggling to keep up with the Doctors long 
  strides. He would soon be out of breath. Abruptly The Doctor turned and 
  put his hand on the wall. A red panel lit up and outlined his hand. The 
  panel shifted to green and the wall slide aside. Kile was surprised again. 
  He would have kept going on and on. He would have to insure he did not lose 
  his guide. 
  "Don't worry, Minister. If you get lost we have cameras that will find 
  you." the Doctor commented as he brushed into the new room. The Minister 
  shivered as he look around for the watching eyes. Of course he could not see 
  them, but he could feel them. "Well, what do you think?" 
  The Doctor was standing before a large thing. Kile slowly looked up 
  and his jaw dropped open. 
  The proton drive projected two hundred feet into the mountain. There 
  was another three hundred feet below him. 
  It was a mass of piping of various sizes and shaped. Occasionally a tank of 
  some kind projected out. It looked like a plumbers nightmare. 
  Kile walked slowly over to the edge and peered into the 
  lighted abyss. It looked quite deep. 
  "Its huge!" 
  The Doctor smiled. The tall proton drive's piping glittered and 
  gleamed in it grandeur. 
  "Yes, I know. And this is what the Council Terraforming Committee has 
  been 'dumping' money into." 
  The Minister was still speechless. 
  "Come, lets go to my office. I have a nice view. And more importantly, 
  comfortable chairs." 



  I have only been with the committee for a short time." 
  The Doctor was still musing on the Ministers reaction. 
  "This is, of course, very top secret. I'm well informed that some fake 
  plague will be invented to clean the colonists off the surface." The doctor 
  sipped his coffee. "Hopefully, the force created will not damage the domes 
  to severally." The Doctor smiled. 
  Kile also drank his coffee. Though he was gulping his. His nerves 
  were not being easy on him. 
  "But, if all goes well, the domes won't not be needed, right?" 
  The Doctor frowned slightly. 
  "The conquering of Mars has been a long quest of mankind. Originally, 
  we thought that simply coming here and setting up The domes would be 
  enough." the Doctor coughed." They were wrong. So they set up the 
  Terraforming Committee about seventy years ago. It proposed dozens of crazy 
  ideas. From pumping water from earth to crashing a ice comet into the 
  planet. Each of these plans were supposed to help revive the dead planet." 
  The Doctor motioned around him. "This is only the final step in a long 
  series." 
  Kile furrowed his brow. He had not come to be lectured. "Doctor, you 
  evaded the question." 
  The Doctor smiled and sipped his coffee. 
  "Hopefully, Minister, it will work. I only know what the computer 
  simulations tell me." 
  The Minister frowned again. 
  "And they say?" 
  "They say it should work. But as the saying goes, the best laid plans 
  of mice and men." The Doctor wiggled his index finger in the air and 
  suddenly plunged it towards the floor. "Boom the commode." 
  "I'm afraid I don't really know about the plans of mice. But I am 
  vaguely aware of the plans of the Council. Could you please solidify these 
  notions?" 
  The Doctor smiled. He placed his coffee on the desk and pulled the 
  computer monitor into the Ministers view. 
  "Since your new, you get the full treatment. Slides and all. 
  "As you know the Terraforming Committee has been working for many odd 
  years into transforming the planet Mars into a viable ecosystem. After many 
  failed attempts it was realized why Mars had died in the first place." 
  The Doctor stopped. 
  "You do know about the aboriginal Martians they found, right?" 
  The Minister nodded. 
  "Good. Well, 
  The Doctor went on to explain that the original inhabitants had died 
  out because of Mars distance from the sun. Due to this distance, they boiled 
  during the day and froze at night. There have been similar account on earth, 
  however, not so extreme. 
  So the council came to the conclusion that Mars itself was the culprit 
  and have decided to relocate the planet to someplace sunnier. 
  "Kind of a prolonged vacation. Think the War God will mind?" The 
  Doctor joked. 
  "So essentially, the Council believes that if the planet were in a 
  different orbit, closer to the sun, that it would be reborn?" 
  "Correct! Now the only problem is a big one. How do you move a 
  planet?" the Doctor drank some more of his coffee. "You can't just call a 
  galactic U-Haul." 
  "I can't even imagine." 
  The Doctor grunted. "Well, they did, and put me in charge of building 
  the sucker. Complete with complaining about its getting done before the 
  Junction." 
  The Minister gave a confused look. "Junction?" 
  "Oh, yes. The Solar Junction. A planet is a big thing to go mucking 
  about with. You can't just pick it up and move it around without thinking 
  about The consequences." the doctor turned on the computer monitor. The 
  display jumped to life and showed a graphic of the solar system from 
  directly over head. "Now, the solar system is in a delicate balance. Upset 
  that balance in the slightest and bang!" he pushed a key on the monitor and 
  the simulation Mars went careening of into the sun. Kile's gasped. The 
  Doctor laughed. 
  "Of course, at the speeds we're dealing with, that event would take 
  decades. Other scenarios include the planet spinning to much and 
  disintegrating. Or flying off out of the solar system forever. A rogue 
  planet." The Doctor smirked. 
  "So they worked out the math and built a giant proton drive to push 
  the planet out of its orbit." Kile surmised. 
  "Proton Drives. Plural. There are two more. This is just the main one.. 
  The thrust has to be just right or boom. The planet will get pulled apart." 
  Kile envision the three giant engines tearing the planet. He grimaced.. 

  "Don't worry, these bunkers were built to withstand such and event. 
  We're stocked up with two years worth of 
  food. We can even implement a hydroponics plant and extensive recycling, we 
  could live forever in this tin can. And we have emergency escape craft to 
  boot." 
  Kile's gut churned. "Luckily, I will not be present." 
  The Doctor smiled. 
  "Don't be to sure." 
  The Minister looked at the Doctor. 
  "What do you mean?" 
  "Well, I wouldn't go and make any decisions till I read that dossier." 
  Kile remembered the attache case cuffed to his wrist. 
  Quickly he produced a key and unlocked the case. He withdrew a manilla 
  envelope and pulled out several papers. The Doctor reached out and snatched 
  them away. Kile almost jumped out of his chair. The Doctor hushed him and 
  silently read the papers. At the end he raised his eyebrows and whistled. 
  "Well, Minister, It seemed that the big boys misjudged the moving day.. 
  And it a lucky thing to." He threw the papers into the Ministers fault. 
  "Cause your gonna get to be present for the galaxies greatest fireworks 
  display." 



  The preparation for Moving Day had progressed beautifully. The 
  colonist were evacuated under the pretense of a space plague. The domes 
  were all secured and the facilities were all sealed. 
  The calculations for the Junction had been a week late. Fortunately 
  the facilities had been ready for a week already and had undergone extensive 
  testing. 
  In three hours, earth would be on the almost opposite side of the sun, 
  allowing the red planet to move without disturbing big blue. At that 
  critical moment the three giant Proton drives would blow their caps and 
  scream propulsive forces out into space. 
  Kile sat in his chair, white knuckled. Due to his recent assignment to 
  the Terraforming Committee, it had been he who was charged with being 
  present at ground zero. Meanwhile, the rest of the Council planted their 
  butts on the moon and waited. 
  The good Doctor Franje had been quite busy lately, leaving Kile to 
  ponder his possible death. On several occasions the Minister had voiced his 
  fear. The Doctor had reassured him that if anything really terrible 
  happened, they would all be killed instantly and never know. Very 
  reassuring. Kile reminded himself never to discuss death with Doctor. As 
  curious as Kile was normally, seemed to feel rather ill any time anyone 
  tried to explain something technical to him. Basically, he was strapped to 
  a giant bomb that would explode, hopefully away from him. 
  Sweat was pouring down his face. He stared ahead at the control room's 
  lighted panels. The digital clock on the wall slowly clicked down the 
  minutes. Kile reached out and 
  grabbed his water cup. He quickly gulped down what was left. He figured he 
  drank three gallons in the last five hours. The sweat soaked through his 
  shirt. Kile smiled as he though to the weight he was probably losing. 
  Suddenly Doctor Franje was in the room. He made his way to the seat in 
  front of Kile's. He turned and smiled wickedly. 
  "Ready for a real ride, Minister?" 
  Kile's stomach flipped inside out. 
  "Please, call me Kile." 
  The Doctor smiled even more wickedly. "Okay, Kile!" 
  The Doctor turned in his seat and fasten his harness. Kile did similarly. 
  The Doctor, sitting in front of a control board, spoke into a microphone. 
  "This is the two minute warning. Every one fasten you seat belts and 
  return your chair to their full upright positions." The Doctor snickered in 
  a sinister manner. He turned and sneered at Kile again. Kile almost got 
  sick. 
  "This is the One minute warning. Better nail it down now kiddos cause 
  the computer the one in charge now." 
  Silently Kile prayed that every thing was nailed down, that everything 
  worked, that he'd get that pony he'd always wanted. The Doctor turned to 
  Kile. 
  "Hope you went to the restroom, cause we ain't stoppin'! Ha HA!" The 
  Doctor turned back and announced the thirty second countdown. Kile prayed. 
  Ten, please God, Nine, don't let me die, Eight, I really don't what to 
  die, Seven, dying would not be good, Six, I'm sorry for all the things I 
  ever did, Five, 
  "Hold onto you butts!" the Doctor screamed over the raising din of 
  ignition. 
  Four, I hate that man! Three, Why me? Two, Oh GOD 
  One, 
  "God, I have to piss!" 
  Ignition. 



  The planet Mars had finally settled into its new orbit. The water from 
  the poles was quickly melting, forming vast seas and rivers. The colonists 
  had returned and begun the clean up and rebuilding. The Terraforming 
  Committee had announced it findings that the planet Mars would be able to 
  sustain a viable ecosystem in fifty years. This was cause for a lot of 
  backslapping and congratulations. 
  The only setback had been the strange matter regarding the main 
  facility. After it had finished pushing the planet, it had ripped right out 
  of the mountain and gone careening off into deepspace. 
  While the subsequent volcanic reactions were beneficial to the new 
  mars, the lost men on board were deeply mourned. 

  But look on the bright side. They'll be the first one to reach Alpha 
  Centuri.