LAST CONTACT ON THE RED PLANET (Crisis in Purity Beacon)

Last Contact on the Red Planet is the first novel written by Mark R. Perkins and is the first part of a proposed two part storyline. The human race has begun an incredible mission to visit other worlds and attempt to terraform them so that they can live on these worlds of wonder. As it is still the early stages of this journey away from Earth, their beautiful home planet, the entire process is still strictly only theoretical and experimental at this point in time so progress is a little slow at the moment. This is why Mars was the obvious first choice to be the first world where humans would make their attempts to creating an atmosphere of any kind that they could live in. A number of bases were built on the famous red planet, each with their own special uses and missions to aid in creating the atmosphere. These missions ranged from creating breathable air and clean water to trying to make it possible to have sustainable plant life on Mars to use as crops. Each of these bases maintained constant radio contact with each other and mission control back on Earth.One of these bases is Purity Beacon which specialises in the creation of clean, drinkable water. Purity Beacon had two processes to creating water. Firstly, they extracted ice from the north polar ice cap to see if they could purify it which is how the base was given its title. The second method which was much more dangerous and time consuming was by carefully combining oxygen with hydrogen. Once enough water was created and collected, Purity Beacon was to launch a large amount of it into the Martian sky in an attempt to create rainfall which would aid in sustaining plant life on Mars. This was one of the most important bases on Mars and a base that the human race could not afford to lose under any circumstances if this mission was to be successful.Unfortunately, everyone's worse fears had began to come true as Purity Beacon had suddenly become radio silent without any kind of explanation as to why communications had been halted. The only available clue was that Alpha Base, the commanding base on Mars had recieved a final message from Purity Beacon that had created concern which Alpha Base had then sent to Earth for review. In the radio message, it was stated that Purity Beacon had found something and whatever it was that they had found, it was killing everyone. The last part of the message stated "Don't trust any..." before the radio message became constant nerve wrecking sounds of uninterrupted static. Desperate to find out what has happened to Purity Beacon, Earth sends a team mixed with 3 scientists and a small group of military personel to investigate. But when the team arrives in Purity Beacon, they discover that the investigation mission will actually be a mission for their own survival.Last Contact on the Red Planet is the story of the investigation filled with many unanswered questions and a desperate fight to survive. This story promises to keep readers guessing and contain a number of unexpected twists that will leave readers shocked.

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