and the Cometary Reclamation

1 TOM SWIFTand theCometary ReclamationBYThomas Hudson&Leo L. LevesqueBook two in the trilogy that began with Tom Swift and His Space Battering RamA JointThackery Fox & Assoc. / Levesque Publishing EmpirePublicationMade in The United States on America opyright 2014 by the authors of this book (Thomas Hudson and Leo L. Levesque). While some of the characters in this story have appeared in other books and collections of books, published by other entities, it is believed that all have fallen into Public Domain status. Fair use under Copyright Law provisions for parodies is claimed for their inclusion in this book authors retain all ownership and copyrights to new or substantially altered characters, previously unpublished locations and situations, and to their contributions to this book and to the total characters Damon Swift, Anne Swift and Bashalli Prandit were created by Scott Dickerson and are used through his incredible largess and understanding that they are superior to those they book is a work of fan fiction.

2 It is not claimed to be part of any previously published adventures of the main characters. It has been self-published and is not intended to supplant any authored works attributed to the pseudononomous author, Victor Appleton II, or to claim the rights from any legitimate publishing Swift and the Cometary ReclaimationBy Thomas Hudson and Leo L. LevesqueAfter Tom saves the world from the rouge comet meant to wreck havoc on the Earth, the Swifts work along with Harlan Ames, recently elevated to head of the former Master s lunar colony, to see what the situation might now be. They find it an uneasy standoff between the Elite colonists and the Cordillera work people. The Elite want to continue to treat them as slaves and to have no status in the domes.

3 They outnumber the CPA by a ratio of 10,000 : 200. But they do all the manual labor that the Elite with their superior intelligence won t touch. At the same time California has reached a tipping point. The population had grown so large that they outstrip all natural resources. Water, vital to all life, is in such short supply that the Governor must make a decision to order supplies shut off except to emergency locations and the farming speeding back to Earth, Tom hatches a plan to put his newest technology into action, but finds that getting things from point A to point B may be impossible unless he can do the that just might mean the salvation of the new Lunar colony as well!

4 _____This book is dedicated to the plucky few who dare to reach for the unreachable star. Or, to see themselves in a position in the future to make a fantastic advance in humanity. As mankind discusses how to get to Mars, these few already have it in their heads they will be the first ones to go. We wish you well, we wish you safe passage, and we hope you achieve what you hope to do. 3 The huge object was shedding debris at a ton per minute, but Tom knew it was so massive this could go on for a thousand more years. Page 1114 TABLE OF CONTENTSCHAPTER PA GE Forward(s) by Both Authors 7 & 9 1 A Terrible Situation 11 2 The Visitation 19 3 And, Away We Go! 27 4 Trek Into Mystery 35 5 The Upper Hand, and How To Gain It 45 6 53 7 Tom s Decision 61 8 Back to Shangri-La 69 9 Diminution of Flow 79 10 Panic 89 11 Risky Business 99 12 Night Moves 111 13 Easy to Start, But How to Finish?

5 119 14 Master From the Dead 129 15 Got One! 139 16 The Evil Within 151 17 The Boxy, Pipey, Squirty Thing 159 18 Anchors Away! 171 19 Moments of Many Truths 183 20 It s Raining, Men. Hallelujah! 195 56 Tom Swift and the Cometary ReclamationFOREWORD Tom HudsonThis book, as you probably have figured out, is the second in the short series (could it be called a miniseries?) of books that Leo Levesque and I have written one, Tom Swift and His Space Battering Ram, came out fast and furious with each of us handling one of the two major story lines. Then we took turns bridging each other s work into a single believe we did a good job. It seems that we did.

6 I ve had people ask if I wrote it all and just put a second name on I did not! Leo exists and I will swear to our visions of the universe of Tom Swift may differ on a few details, Leo and I have a love for the characters and a respect for the situations they can be placed in. That means that we approach how the story is created in enough of a similar manner to make it appear as if the work is coming from one mind and at least two me when I tell you, hand my over heart, there really are two of us living in about the most opposite sides of the country as possible with Leo in Rhode Island and my own self in Oregon. We pass things back and forth electronically because to do it any other way might seem to be counter to the way things in Tom s world should there be more dual efforts after this?

7 I hope for a little warning: This and the first book are not your old fashioned, peaches and cream Tom Swift stories. They are grittier and feature more and deaths. I just want you to know that. They are not for adults only, but use caution in readers under the age of about Hudson 78 Tom Swift and the Cometary ReclamationFOREWORD Leo LevesqueThis novel is about a year overdue. Even though I wrote the outline for it way back then, at least three other books got in the way. Working with Tom is a pleasure and I've looked forward to doing it both feel that this book is going to be fun and highly intense. It s not going to be for the faint in heart. Too many lives are at stake and the balance of two worlds hang on the more Tom Swift has to do the impossible.

8 And, once more, not everyone wants him to succeed. Leo L. Levesque910 Tom Swift and theCometary Reclamation Chapter One: A Terrible SituationThe ancient comet was nearing the end of its life. Where it once had traversed the solar system and beyond in a seemingly never-ending loop nearly immune to the cosmic and gravitational forces of the various planets and the G-type star as determined by the beings inhabiting the third planet out it had recently been captured, waylaid if that is a possible description, and turned into a had no consciousness so it could not know any of this, but regardless, it had been turned away by a few determined inhabitants of that blue planet and flung with some force toward the center of the star.

9 Nothing would move it off its death path now. For nearly a year as measured by the rotation of the third planet it had been picking up speed, ever heading to the had been spewing everything on its surface into a huge tail behind itself. Now passing inside the orbit of the smallest and nearest of the star s planets, that tail reached back all the way to the orbit of the second tons per second were being vaporized and ripped from its own rather weak gravitational pull to stream back and away in one of the most spectacular sights ever to be witness by anything for that all the millennia-old ice was gone along with millions of pounds of metals. Now, its solid core of nickel and carbon was glowing.

10 The surface flowing like had eleven days, nine hours, twenty-six minutes and a few seconds to go before it exploded and disappeared inside the approaching star where it would make no more effect than a single raindrop does in a very large lake.* * *11 TOM SWIFT left his house for work at Swift Enterprises the four-mile-square research and industrial complex outside of Shopton, New York a few minutes before eight after having slept in an extra hour. He had spent several hours around midnight glued to the monitor of his home-located SuperSight of enhancing an already super high definition visual input to the point where something seven miles away could be viewed as if it were only twenty feet away, Tom had a smaller version built for his own private use and had mounted it under a clear tomasite bubble on top of the house where he and his young wife, Bashalli, lived.