Mars Outpost 2nd ed

By the year 2080, the US-Mars program has had a functional self-sustaining base on Mars for about 20-years. Cargo ships move back-and-forth with goods, a journey that takes just more than a year. Our hero is adventurous cargo-pilot Guy Reisling. The novel spans this five year period, during which time the Eastern Russian-Islamic/Ukrainian/Hindustan space-program alliance on Earth, secretly launch their own ships to Mars, to take control of the US base there by force, and provide for themselves. The US Mars-base operations, with about 300 people who live and work there, is peaceful and scientific, for research-only. The base has no weapons, and functions year-round in the hot-and-cold, very thin, almost non-existent Mars atmosphere, an air tight high-tech fortress at the feet of the towering Tharsis-Montes mountains. Guy Reisling and his crew, with Vandenberg Mars program director Lynn Rodgers-Smith, Mars-base commander Bojji-Than, and other colorful characters, have a year to prepare for the advancing Russian-Islamic ships. Earth-based Russian program launch site commander Rudolph Terchenko, Mars attack leader Prokov Keeje, and 300 soldiers in 'walker suits', are also pitted against the US-Mars ships sent to save the base, led by experienced space-pilot Winton 'Kick' Berle, but arriving months later. At the same time, international intrigue back home on Earth, creates an East-West conflict between the competing space-programs, to shut down further hostile Eastern launches.