America One: War of the Worlds by T. I. Wade

go to space in a spacesuit Jon Lee Jong,” Lunar replied smiling.
    “How long does it take to learn?” asked the boy.
    “About eight years,” replied Lunar. “My son is about to learn how to wear a spacesuit.”
    “How old is your son?’ asked Jon Lee Jong.
    “He will be nine next month, and his name is James.”
    “You can join him and my son, Michael. He is 9, and also starts soon,” added Mars Noble, much to the table’s shock that somebody else was speaking out of turn.
    “Father, I would like to learn how to go to space,” stated the boy factually and turning to his father.
    “What about your lessons?” his father replied.
    “I’m sure the American boys have lessons too?”
    “I will think about it. Thank you son, you may go.” The young boy bowed to his father, then the guests, turned and walked off in the direction he had entered.
    “I need a year for him to finish his current schooling. My son is learning Chinese history, and he must be perfect in this subject, Ms. Richmond. If it is possible, I would like to, as you Americans state in the movies, take a rain check on the offer? Lunar nodded. The Premier continued. “I believe my apology has been accepted and now new friends of China, I will assume that you have other requests for me and my country?”
    “The lunch was really good, especially the Roast Duck,” stated Maggie as she sat with Lunar and her husband as they flew towards Seoul, South Korea.
    “What happened next?” asked Saturn her father doing the flying, or at least the monitoring of the instruments. The others were all in the Captain’s apartment which had been turned into a seating area for the journey.
    “Once Lunar was offered her apology, everyone at the table relaxed and there was even some laughter from both sides,” Maggie continued. “Ryan stated what he needed to complete the scheduled mission to Mars, and the Premier was quiet for several minutes. Then he clicked his fingers and the two same men ran over and bowed.”
    “If I bowed so much my back would begin to hurt,” stated Jonesy.
    “Don’t forget your legs, Dad,” added Saturn winking at her mother. Since he had returned from DX2017, Jonesy’s legs always seemed to hurt. They hurt when somebody mentioned the word, beer. Same with the words, whiskey and vodka.
    What had made Saturn really think was a week or so earlier, when VIN and Suzi Noble caught up with her father on one of the jogs. Saturn and Maggie were about 100 feet behind Jonesy, who seemed to run quite well with his “painful” legs. VIN, with Suzi using her metal legs passed and apologized to the two girls. When the “half-metal” pair reached Jonesy though, he didn’t want them to overtake him, and the burst of speed he managed with his legs in the “bad way” they were, raised both the girl’s eyebrows. Jonesy was like a race horse out of the gate and VIN and Suzi took a couple of seconds to catch him up.
    What passed the lips of those three runners wasn’t heard by anybody else, but both Maggie and Saturn had ignored Jonesy’s bleating’s about sore legs from then on.
    “The desert was also good and it seemed that we were suddenly all friends,” continued Maggie while Lunar dozed next to her. “Ryan explained that he would like to share some of the gold from Mars with China, if they helped him with liquid hydrogen fuel to get to the planet and back. The Premier reminded Ryan that his country used to have a space agency, and program of its own, until the United States Air Force blew their space station out of the sky, when they nuked an incoming asteroid too close to earth three decades ago. Ryan apologized for his country, so did the U.S. Government aide, and then the Premier told the table the good news that his country still had liquid hydrogen reserves. The fuel was decades old but still useable as a fuel in space. His country had about 80,000 gallons at a secret location, and had already begun making new rocket fuel only a