The UR Jack Commer

The UR Jack Commer

by Michael D. Smith

Published by Sortmind Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2021 by Michael D. Smith

cover design by Michael D. Smith

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For my wife Nancy, who told me that everything in my life is for my art

For my friend Sabin Russell, and our mutual spurring of our early writing

For my high school teacher Cathy Green, who championed my writing and who caught the revealing psychic error in The Legacy of Jack Commer

Introduction

After publishing seven Jack Commer novels I felt a need to pull together Jack’s entire history starting from my first fifth-grade story about him. It electrified my nine-year-old self. Although I’d already written numerous science fiction stories, Voyage to Venus was the first time I’d finished one and said to myself: Wow, this is cool, this is where I belong, this is what I want to be doing! That story began my writing path. I also debuted here as an entertainer; when I read my SF stories to the class, even the class bullies were spellbound.

What follows are early and later experiments that never made it to the published Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. Included also is high school’s The Legacy of Jack Commer, which was probably the real spark of this book. It took me quite some time to hunt down my ancient box of high school essays to find this class assignment that had reverberated over the years. I’d never forgotten it, but upon discovery it wasn’t quite how I’d remembered it.

I’ve left intact the misspellings and strange punctuation of the first stories, though I’d already corrected the 1964 Trip to Mars when I published it as a picture book in 2017. I didn’t start properly italicizing spaceship names until the twenty-first century, but I did that now for all the stories, as it eliminates some confusion.

I’m struck by how close in time the four fifth-grade stories about Jack are: September 1962 to March 1963. Maybe there’s another little picture book to make from those four stories! I’d also assumed that one of the fifth-grade Jack stories was an imaginary one where he died in the end, but that turned out to be another expedition to Jupiter in which a hapless astronaut steps into the Red Spot and dissolves, narrating his death in the first person. But ever-surviving Jack Commer managed to dodge that fate.

We get kid consciousness, in increasing maturity, through the first few stories, up through the abandoned eighth-grade draft of The Martian Marauders. Then The Martian Holes showcases my wild, sloppy, but somehow still amusing post-college writing style. The interviews with Jack in Zorexians develop a new adult flavor; in addition to finally admitting that he’s way in over his head with the sexy, unattainable Jackie Vespertine, Jack also muses on his long acquaintance with me and critiques my writing procedures.

We conclude with an aborted 1987 attempt to rewrite the eighth-grade version of The Martian Marauders. There were numerous difficulties integrating child and adult consciousness which I didn’t resolve until years later, when I resurrected much of this first dropped chapter and revised the book into a fast-paced adult novel, then wrote a cycle of Jack novels.

Contents

Voyage to Venus, September 1962

A Voyage to Jupiter, January 1963

The First Expedition of Saturn, February 1963

Voyage to Venusian Death, March 1963

Trip to Mars, Spring 1964

The Martian Marauders, October 1965-March 1966

The Legacy of Jack Commer, September 1968

The Martian Holes, June 1974

Zorexians, October 1981 - January 1982

Plot 5, November 1982

The Martian Marauders, Aborted Draft 2, Chapter 1, January 1987

Voyage to Venus (2033)

September 19, 1962

In my grammar school stories, I assigned dates to each, plotting out a Heinlein-esque Future History, arranging the stories by date into what I later called The Blue Notebook. Four of The Blue Notebook’s thirty-four stories featured Jack Commer.

Nine astronauts were walking to a USSF meeting. I, Jack Commer, was one of them. When we got in the building, we heard a man talking. He said the next space flight would be to Venus. Then he said that four brave men would go. After electing I found myself one of those four.

Among me were Jim Coner, Pat Walker, and Henry James.

It was Oct 19, 2033 and flight day. Inside an X-45 mounted on top of a Titan V booster, was my follow astronauts and me.

Then … . 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-l- … .. Lift off! We were on our way.

It took us 3 days to get to Venus. When we got there, we cracked up the rocket. We knew that we would not get back to Earth but still we could report our finds. So we got to work. Suddenly there was a rubbling sound. We turned, saw smoke, and there before us, stood a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex! Jim, Pat and I ran. But James stood there paralyzed. I rushed to his aid, but failed. With a cry of horror, James was lifted in the air by the sharp teeth of the monster. After he went away, I noticed that he came from a large cave. We decided to have breakfast and then explore the cave. For breakfast we had toast. Afterwards I noticed that the heat from our stove was low. Later we decided to report our finds to central control. They said they would send another rocket to get us.

Three days later the rocket came, and we boarded for home.

The End

An Imaginary story that will never happen

Gore

A Voyage to Jupiter (2037)

January 2, 1963

Note the discrepancy between the title’s date and the date in the story. Gore was a sort of series title used by me and my friend Sabin Russell in our childhood stories. This particular story even had a footnote.

A building rested on a small hill. Inside are the men who will launch 4 men to Jupiter. The 4 men are I, Jack Commer, my brothers Joe and Jim and John Harrison, Jr.

It was Jan. 14, 2035.--flight day--we were all waiting to go. Finally it was time to go. Our rocket blasted off and landed on Jupiter in 5 days--a week.* In the morning we hiked 10 miles. Everything was covered in snow.

Suddenly we heard a crunching sound. We turned and saw footsteps, appearing in the snow. It was one of Jupiter’s Ivisible giants! Then John floated in the air. The giant had caught him!

With a sizzling sound John was melted in to a blob with the giant’s death-ray gun.

Then Jim was sizzed. I was horried. He was he melted and so was Joe. Then I was captured and was lead to a cave. Then I took out my portable death-ray I killed the giant, got into the ship and headed for Earth.

The End

by Mickey Smith

* (the calendar has been chagned.)

Gore

The First Expedition of Saturn (2040)

February 11, 1963

I, Jack Commer, in the year 2040, was heading for N.A.S.A. in my solar-powered air car when the engine conked out. So I went over to Merzt: You Rent A Solar-Powered Air Car. After picking one up, I went to N.A.S.A. headquarters. I was a little late but nobody minded. You see, this was the day Jim Petersen, Harry Johnston, and I were to voyage to Saturn.

At 10:00 P.M. the final countdown started. 10--9--8--7--6--5--4--3--2--1--Lift Off! At 10:30 P.M. our rocket separated from the pull of Earth’s gravity. Then I turned on the television and we saw a big crowd still on Cape Canavril. We reported our position. But then the screen went black we couldn’t get a hello from any tracking station on Earth

We reached Saturn in 10 days. We got out of the rocket and saw strange flowers, rivers that flow uphill, and a bubbling pool with a shower of a compound of acid and mercury. Petersen wanted to take samples, but I wouldn’t allow him because the acid would burn his space suit away.

Then we saw it. On a cliff, a half mile away we saw a village. The natives looked like cavemen, and would not grow more than 5 feet high. Then one alein saw us. He angrily picked up a bowl of powder and spinkled it on us!

See chapter II

Gore

The powder paralized us. Before we knew it, we were tied to the stake.

But when we were first prisoners, I had grabbed a bottleful of the acid compound.

Now I raised my hand and threw some of it on the aleins. Their skin was eaten away by the acid. We used what was left of it to burn away the ropes. Then we got in the spaceship and took off. When we got to Earth we had a big party. We were proud of our victory.

The End

by Mickey Smith

Voyage to Venusian Death (2030)

March 28, 1963

I, Jack Commer, was blasting off from Earth in my one-man atomic-powered spaceship when I heard a faint sound on the radio. I walked over to a shelf over where I usually slept and turned the sound on the radio up. Then I could hear the message. It was from the Venusian space-pirates!

One man was saying that in 2 hours a neucular attack would be launched on Earth.

Being a member of the Space Club, I had already bounded over to my bench and warned Earth of the attack. After I hung up I realized I shouldn’t spend all my time lolling around. I dicided to look for the space pirates.

No sooner than I had done this than the space pirates ship buzzed me and let fly with a belt of space bullets. Luckyly my rocket had of protective covering that could shed bullets.

Suddenly the space pirate’s ship veered to the left and zoomed out ahead of me. For awhile it seemed I would never catch up.

But then something happened. The ship’s engines conked out. I shot a missile that would cause the Venusians death and I would not have to arrest them.

The ship turned over and fell to the Earth. I watched the Space Pirates of Venus crash to their death.

The End

by Mickey Smith

Trip to Mars

Spring 1964

I later rendered this ambitious sixth-grade attempt at a novel into a published picture book, retaining the exact wording as below.

I. The New Jersey Project

It was a clear day even though this day was the most disastrous date in the earth’s history. A terrible nuclear war had just ended a month before: on October 8, 2033.

Jack Commer, pilot of the world’s first nuclear powered spaceship, the Typhoon I, which had dropped the Xon bomb on Russia to end the war, was walking to a friend’s house when he heard an ominous rumbling from the background. It came closer. Suddenly a wide crack opened up in the ground and Commer fell into it. The crack closed up and Commer was trapped 18 feet beneath the earth’s surface.

He slowly drew his atom powered ray gun, aimed it, and fired up at the top of his underground prison. It made a hole in the ground and Commer, a bit dusty and dirty, climbed out. He then rushed to his friend’s house where he was met by his three brothers, John, Joe, and Jim Commer.

His friend, a scientist, was welcoming him when he noticed how dirty Jack was.

What happened to you? he said.

Quickly Jack told of what had happened.

It’s just as I figured. You see, I have observed that the moon is sending radioactive rays making cracks in the earth. And that would mean--

That the moon would explode in a few days, finished Jim.

Yes, the scientist answered. I have already contacted the President about this. He is going to hold a United Nations meeting. You four and I are invited to attend.

Okay, said Jack. We’ll get a hotel here tonight and go to the meeting tomorrow.

Later that day Jack, Joe, Jim, and John Commer met Mickey Michaels, Harri McNarri, James Reynolds, and Ken Garrison at their hotel.

We’ll have to get up early, Reynolds said. The meeting is quite early.

Okay. Let’s get to sleep, said Joe. And he did.

II. Time for Decision

Early the next morning, the Commers, Reynolds, Garrison, Michaels, and McNarri, and a guide got up, went to the U.N. building, and waited for the meeting to begin.

When it began, silence was all around the room. The meeting lasted for three hours. After it was over, a charter for the evacuation of the earth was drawn up. All members signed it, but the delegate from Arabia was not present. They would have to wait until tomorrow for the delegate to get in from Arabia.

The next day the delegate from Arabia was coming in by plane to New York. As he landed at Kennedy International Airport, he was personally escorted by several guards into a motorcade to the U.N., where the charter was waiting to be signed. Everyone was there cheering for him.

Everyone but a lone figure standing on top of a building with a rifle in his hand.

III. Assassination

As the motorcade passed by the building the figure took aim, and WHEEEEEEEE! A yellow beam came out from the gun and hit the Arabian delegate squarely in the chest. He fell out of the air car where a motorcycle almost hit him and veered to the side.

As guards gathered around the delegate, policemen swarmed up the side of the building to try and catch the assassin. But, not to be fooled, the assassin ran for the edge of the building, jumped off, and met his death in the street below.

Meanwhile, at a