by Ricky Sides
“I can’t wait,” he said and smiled in anticipation.
Next, she showed him the water processor. “This machine gathers water from the air outside the ship and inside as well. It’s pretty complicated and not my specialty, but the man that designed it explained it to me. He said to picture a home dehumidifier. This machine utilizes that basic principal. It collects the moisture from the air and condenses it into liquid form. That water is then filtered through a filtration system and stored in a tank. Just how much it can distill in this manner depends upon factors such as relative humidity and outside temperature. It automatically shuts down if the tanks fill up. Right now it’s operating so the tanks aren’t full. As I recall, the tanks can hold a few hundred gallons of water. I can tell you exactly how much is available when we check out the control room.”
The cabinets inside the galley were all outfitted with doors that locked when closed. To open the doors one had to grasp the handle and twist it. The handle would rotate to the left working attached retaining bars inside the doors thus unlocking them. There were dozens of plates, glasses, and cups stored in the cabinets. Unfortunately, the pantry cabinets had never been stocked.
Patricia led him to the mess hall. “You’ll note that this is the only set of doorways set directly opposite each other. That’s to facilitate food transportation. There are no doors because they’d just be a nuisance to the cook and people transporting food into the mess hall. Two tables in the mess hall are affixed to the floor. The seating, as you can see, is also fixed and booth style, such as the booths of the old-fashioned restaurants. They aren’t nearly as comfortable though. The padding is thin and the seats are much harder.”
“Well compared to what we’ve been using, they’re downright elegant,” Tim responded.
“Indeed they are,” replied Patricia.
They went into the next area of the ship, which was a large cargo bay. When Patricia turned up the lighting in this room, she warned, “Remember that lighting this area is rather wasteful on the power. Never leave these lights on for an extended period if it is unoccupied. We had thought to set up motion sensors to kill the lighting in all nonessential areas when they were not in use.” Shrugging she said, “But we never got that upgrade installed before the deadline to ship the vehicle for the demonstration. It wasn’t deemed a top priority.”
“Tim, are you all right?” she asked as she turned to her husband, who wasn’t responding. She saw him standing there staring at four parked motorcycles locked into their retaining brackets. “Oh, I see they brought the battle bikes aboard. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Battle bikes?” he asked.
Nodding her head she said, “Well, the man who was going to command the ship during the demonstration wanted to really impress the brass during the trials. He had battle bikes designed and planned to have four of the special ops men exit the cargo bay and neutralize a target with them during the demonstration, while the ship provided covering fire. That was his vision of a successful demonstration of the ability of the special ops personnel to utilize the delivery platform of the ship for specialized combat scenarios. He was a good man. He personally saw to the evacuation of the development team and their families to the shelter. Unfortunately, he died with them in that shelter.”
Tim walked over and looked at the bikes. “Wow,” he said as he noted the armaments. They were equipped with small machine guns mounted just above the headlights.
“There will be launch tubes for mini-rockets on each bike as well. However, to prevent accidental discharges inside the bay, the rockets should not be equipped to the bikes until they are ready to be used. You understand. The same applies to the machine guns,” Patricia explained and then she pointed to a storage area at the rear of the cargo bay and said, “Ammunition should be in the storage area. Since the bikes are onboard, I’d assume the supplies for them would be as well.”
A quick look inside the storage area that she indicated revealed that it had indeed been stocked with a supply of ammunition and mini-rockets. “I’m afraid this is beyond my expertise, but maybe I can figure it out later when we have time. I know Jim will love this. He’s talked to me about such concepts in the past.”
Next, they moved to the latrine. “This is great. No more squatting in the woods for me,” Patricia said with a grin. “It’s tiny of course, but as you observed in the mess hall, compared to what we have grown accustomed to, it’s elegant.”
Laughing, Tim agreed and examined the small bathroom with her. “The commode is extremely water efficient. Waste goes into a mixing tank, where water is added if needed by the system. It’s ejected from the ship when necessary. That interface is in the control room and is located at the communications access panel. The communications officer does more than handle communication with the outside world. He or she also handles the communications with the ship itself.”
“You mean the ship talks to the crew?” Tim asked in surprise.
“Oh no, but the ship communicates with the communications station and lets the operator know certain things, which the operator has the option of reacting to at that point. Such issues as water levels, waste levels and that sort of thing are operations considerations. The operator can then decide to dump the waste. If ejecting the waste would endanger the mission, the operator had the option of waiting until the ship is in another area to do so. The ship is designed to be as self-contained as possible, so it uses water distilled with the onboard system to mix with the waste and dumps the waste in a diluted spray over a period of minutes designed to minimize detection. However, if the situation calls for a full dump of the system you also have that option. The toilet paper onboard is highly biodegradable and dissolves in water so there won’t be a paper trail,” she said this last with a grin and Tim laughed at her joke.
“Showers onboard are a luxury,” she continued. “They are available, but not practical for a full crew unless you are parked beside an available water supply. The system won’t permit the shower to use the water beyond a set percentage of available water. If the tanks get below fifty percent, the shower deactivates. Period. There is no override on that for critical reasons.”
“I understand. Does it have hot water?”
“It does,” she said smiling impishly. “By the way, I get the shower first.”
“All right,” he responded. “Just save me some water.”
“That won’t be an issue once we get outside the hangar into the humid air left over from the storm. Besides, the shower is extremely water efficient and uses much less than the average American household shower. Still, a time limit is suggested.” She once more mimicked the officer she’d been imitating as she said, “All personnel will maintain strict water discipline while aboard ship. Showers are a luxury. When showers are available, no person will exceed five minutes per shower. The system will automatically shut down the shower after that time limit and it will not reactivate until the door to the latrine opens and closes once more.”
“Wow they thought of everything didn’t they?” Tim said.
“Ahh, no dear, they didn’t,” Patricia said and giggled. “I disabled that program early on after it left me with soapy hair.”
“You mean you have actually stayed in here and used the shower?” Tim asked in surprise.
“Oh, I guess I never told you what the last month leading up to the transfer of the ship from our lab to the base was like. We worked nearly round the clock that month checking, double-checking, and then triple-checking each system. We were in the debug mode and making last minute tweaks to everything. Since I was the senior computer specialist by then, I drew the duty. Several of us lived in the ship that month. We worked, ate, showered, and tested every system thoroughly.”
“That must have been an exciting time for you,” Tim noted. He’d seen the sparkle in her eyes as she’d talked about that testing period.
“Dad and I were never closer than we were that last month of testing. He relied upon my talent with computer
s a lot that month. It made me very happy that I was born with such a high aptitude for the work.”
That was Tim’s first clue that she may have had it rough being gifted as a child. He made a mental note of that and decided to speak to her about the matter at another time. For now, they needed to get back top side. They’d been away from their camp a long time and he didn’t like leaving their possessions alone too long. Of course, with the ship at their disposal, the truck was obsolete, but the rest of their stuff wasn’t.
“All right, Patricia, I think it’s time we got the vehicle out of this complex and back top side so I can load up our gear before someone comes along and steals it.”
“All right. But I still need to use the bathroom, and I’m not about to be using the great outdoors anymore. Not when we have this latrine.”
She ushered him out of the room and closed the door shouting as she did so for him to please wait and she’d show him what the controls all did in a minute.
***
An hour later, they were ready to attempt the departure from the underground complex. Patricia sat down at the communications console and buckled her battle harness. Tim was already sitting in his navigator’s chair with his harness secured. Patricia asked, “Are you sure you can get us out of here? If you have misgivings, then I can write a computer program which you can initiate that will handle the controls for you.”
“I think I can do it easily enough but it’s going to be a bit rough when we clear ground level and move over the ground away from the entrance,” he replied. “I’ll attempt to compensate, but the ship will be at a maximum altitude of thirty feet. When we ease the prototype over the ground, the altitude will change to ten feet and cause the ship to bounce upward another twenty feet.”
“Oh yes it will, won’t it. I hadn’t considered that issue,” she said apologetically.
“You’re not a trained pilot, Hon,” Tim responded. “It’s rather like going from a pocket of cold air into a warmer air pocket in a plane. You get lift from that and it can cause some pretty severe turbulence.”
“Just do your best. Everything is well secured so I think the ship can handle a bumpy ride,” Patricia said smoothly. “And let’s hope the nose doesn’t climb first, like a rocket.”
“Damn,” Tim thought. “I hadn’t even thought of that, but it’s possible,” he paused with his hands over the controls and said, “Last chance to get out. I can always pull you out with a rope.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this for the world!” she stated emphatically.
Pushing the appropriate button to activate the engine a low-pitched whine reached his ears. He studied the control console and noted that the energy levels were at the correct position to begin the maneuvers. He initiated the drive system. When he did so, the ship automatically rose one foot above the ground. Holding his breath, he inched the giant ship forward through the exit. He winced as he put the ship in motion. He was hoping and praying that he had sufficient clearance to make it. When the ship was directly under the entrance, Tim paused. It was going to be a tight fit and he wasn’t at all certain that he had the ship properly aligned to exit the confined space of the entrance. He let the ship hover silently and punched up a coded message on the computer that Patricia had taught him to utilize just a few minutes before they began the maneuver. A tactical display appeared on the monitor before him. It showed the ship in a three-dimensional drawing composed of white lines against a black background. He punched in another coded message and the computer display changed. It now depicted a solid green line that was the safe path out of the complex. It also depicted a dotted green line, which was the path that they would take unless he made course corrections.
Tim nodded his head and said, “I thought I was off a few degrees.” He made the minor course correction and looked at Patricia. “Here we go, Hon. Hang on, this could get rough.”
Tim increased the power to the engines and slowly pushed the altitude lever to maximum. The ship slowly ascended to its maximum altitude of thirty feet. Looking out the window, he saw the edges of the entrance pass and quickly disappear. They stopped rising about ten feet above the entrance.
Patricia’s calm voice sounded from behind him as she said, “Well done. However, power levels will be dropping rapidly. Maintaining this altitude is very energy inefficient.”
“Right,” Tim responded, and then he said, “Brace yourself, here we go.” He eased the throttle forward but a warning light lit up and a message came across the tactical display screen saying, “Warning. The maneuver that the pilot is inputting is recognized as potentially harmful to the crew of the ship.”
“Damn!” Tim cursed and then he shouted, “Patricia, the computer won’t let us try the maneuver.”
Before he could think to stop her, Patricia had unbuckled her harness and rushed over to join him. Standing behind Tim she reached around him, typed in a command line overriding the safety protocol, and then entered her personal identification number to authenticate the decision. The computer prompted back. “Clearance for the hazardous maneuver is granted.”
Patricia kissed him on the cheek, then darted back to her seat, and buckled her harness. “Ready, Sweetheart!” she shouted in excitement.
“Thanks for the assist,” Tim responded and gently eased the craft over the land. As he did so, he gradually eased down on the altitude lever. This was tricky business but when the ship bolted skyward it only rose about five feet, instead of twenty, and he called that a successful maneuver. He then flew the ship to a spot near their tent and eased it down for a landing. Unbuckling his harness, he got up and went to meet Patricia halfway across the room. They embraced and she said, “We did it! We actually secured the vehicle.”
Grinning at his wife’s enthusiasm he said, “We sure did. When you get a chance to do so, do you think you could see about writing a program so that the computer could handle that maneuver, should we ever need to execute it again?”
“Of course I can. I’d be happy to do that for you,” she replied grinning. “That’s my specialty,” she finished and Tim could tell that she was happy to be working in the element that she excelled in once more.
“Well I’d just as soon not have to do that again. It is very risky. Too little altitude and we splat into the edge of the hole, but too much and we catapult upward.”
“I’ll write an algorithm that can handle the computation and have it incorporated into the main flight program. You see, the computer makes many adjustments to flight during travel. For example, fallen trees or other obstacles beneath the ship could cause it to skyrocket too. The ship already handles such issues and the computer overrides to compensate. However, we never anticipated the need for this maneuver. A massive elevator was designed into the base here. It was supposed to lift the ship to the surface the way elevators do on aircraft carriers. I’ll tweak that flight program.”
“You make it all sound so simple, dear, when I’m certain it’s not at all simple,” Tim said in respect for his wife’s talent.
Patricia looked at him in surprise and then she said, “But it is simple to me, dear. Now flying the ship, that’s another matter. I’d not want to try that without a whole lot of training first, and your first flight was a smashing success.”
Chuckling Tim responded, “I’m just glad it wasn’t a crashing failure.”
Chapter 33
The next two days were spent in preparation for their departure. Tim found several crates of spare parts in the underground complex and loaded them into the cargo bay. He also loaded up all of the MREs that he and Patricia had found. He stored the coffee in the kitchen. The remainder of his time he spent scouring the base for any items they might need.
The night before they left, Tim and Patricia were sitting in the mess hall after dinner. As usual when they dined, she sat across from him so that they could see each other as they talked. Tim said, “Well, we did it. The ship is secured, loaded, and provisioned and now we’re ready to go.”
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nbsp; “I knew we could do it if we worked together,” Patricia said with a smile. “But now it’s time we headed to see what happened to your brother.”
Tim leaned forward and kissed the woman he loved more than any he’d ever known. He drew back from her after the kiss and said, “I’m ready whenever you are. I’m sure that by now he has gone to Fort Polk.”
Patricia nodded her head in agreement. Tim had told her all about his brother while she was nursing him back to health. She took a sip of her coffee and asked carefully, “Are you sure that you can find him?”
“I’m sure he’s alive. From everything I know about my brother, I’m almost certain he’d survive the aftermath of these disasters. So unless he was killed by a quake, I’m sure he’s alive.”
Patricia got up, walked around the table, and sat down in her husband’s lap. Hugging him close, she said, “I’m not trying to tell you that your brother is dead. I just want you to be prepared for the worst.”
“I understand, Honey. Nevertheless, I don’t think my brother is dead. If Jim were dead, I’d know it. I’d feel it.” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s difficult to explain, but I’d know it if he were dead. I would feel the loss and I haven’t felt that loss. I’ve been concerned for his welfare several times, but I know from past experience that means that he was in danger.”
“I understand,” said Patricia but she really didn’t. For Tim’s sake, she hoped he was right.
***
The next day Tim sat at the helm of the ship piloting them along a course that would take them to the state of Alabama. He didn’t really know what to call what he was doing. It wasn’t really flying. They lacked the altitude for that. However, it also wasn’t driving because there was no contact with the road. Technically, they were airborne, although they were very low; therefore, he finally opted to call it flying.