Adventures of the Starship Satori
Book 1-6 Complete Library
Kevin McLaughlin
Role of the Hero Publishing
Copyright © 2017, 2019 by Kevin O. McLaughlin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Exclusive free story for fans of Kevin McLaughlin’s science fiction! Learn the story of how John found the alien ship on the moon, launching the adventure which spans the stars and saves all of humanity!
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Contents
Ad Astra
Stellar Legacy
Deep Waters
No Plan Survives Contact
Liberty
Satori’s Destiny
Sample from Book 7: Ashes of War
Afterword
About the Author
Ad Astra
“Ad Astra Per Aspera”
(“A rough road leads to the stars”, from the Apollo 1 Memorial.)
One
Dan tapped each dead soldier in the neck in turn, counting his kills for the evening. He came to six. Add in the bottle he was drinking, and he'd be at seven. That was still under budget. He figured this for a twelve-pack night. Not that the drinking had done him much good. It hadn’t numbed the pain he felt. Neither the ever-present ache in his spine or the stabbing sense of loss he felt in his heart. Seven clearly hadn’t been enough beers. He’d have to do better than that to dull his senses tonight.
He waved to the woman tending the tables, a middle-aged matron whose name he hadn't tried to catch. Why bother? It was just another random stranger in another dirty bar. He’d been in enough of them lately that they all looked the same to Dan. She'd made a few attempts to clear his growing pile of bottles away earlier in the evening, but he'd shooed her off. Dan wanted the physical memory of the drinks sitting right there, like a badge. The woman saw his wave, but didn't bother coming over. She just went to fetch another beer. He kept his eyes off her face. He didn't want to see her disdain, or worse, her pity.
Instead he brought his eyes back to the bar's TV, where the Ares rocket was still sitting on the launch pad. The countdown was frozen at four minutes and fifteen seconds. It hadn't moved for most of an hour now, last minute problems delaying the launch. That wasn’t unusual. Even a small problem could cause a disaster with a mission like this one. The delay was drawing out Dan’s agony in a way that made the evening even more excruciating than he’d expected it to be.
“Hey Joe, can we switch the channel? Missing the game here,” a burly man seated at the bar called out to the bartender.
“Yeah, Joe. This shit is boring,” said another heavy-set guy seated next to him.
Both of them were lumberjack big, wearing dirty work clothes. The sort of rough and tumble types who would be unlikely to back down from an argument, and quick to turn one into a fight. None of which bothered Dan even a little. Maybe if he’d been a little less drunk, he would have let them have their way. But perhaps not. Retreat wasn’t in his nature, either.
“Don't touch that channel,” Dan snarled.
“Or what?” asked the first man. He half rose from his seat as he turned toward Dan.
“Wanna find out?” Dan said, managing to slur his words only a little bit.
“Man, don't mess around. Who wants to see this stupid rocket sitting there, anyway?” the guy replied. “It’s not even going anywhere.”
“I do,” Dan said.
“Larry, you can't pick a fight with a gimp,” the guy's buddy whispered to him, loud enough that Dan could hear anyway.
Larry blushed and sat back down, finally noticing Dan's wheelchair and the uniform he wore. “Hey, man, sorry. You can watch what you want.”
Dan felt a pang of guilt over the other man’s mistake. He saw a soldier in uniform, seated in a wheelchair, and thought he was looking at some veteran wounded in combat. The truth was nowhere near so exciting. He was an Air Force major, all right. For at least the next few days, until the medical discharge was finalized. But he hadn’t been hurt by a missile or gun. It hadn’t been a training accident or enemy action that did him in. No, it was his own conscience that had stuck him in this chair for the rest of his life.
The bartender glared at Dan for a moment from behind his glasses, wiping furiously at a mug with a dishrag. The guys at the bar must be regulars, Dan figured. He probably knew them both by name, and he was pissed at how Dan had acted. But the TV stayed on the same channel despite what the local crowd wanted, so that was all right. There were plenty of bars. This launch was only going to happen once.
Finally the countdown started up again. Whatever the problem was, they must have solved it. There were four minutes left, and the seconds were ticking away. Unconsciously, Dan activated his motorized chair and moved toward the TV. Three minutes left. God, this sucked. Why was he doing this? It would have hurt less to stay home and pretend the launch wasn’t happening. But he couldn’t take his eyes from the screen, no matter how much it pained him to watch.
His eyes misted a little as the first plumes of steam appeared under the titanic rocket. The payload was a crew compartment and landing vehicle – and the first six humans from Earth to ever attempt bridging the vast distance to Mars. They'd be traveling for six months to get there, stay for six months, and then return. It was the adventure of a lifetime. It was supposed to have been the adventure of his lifetime.
He slugged down the last of the beer he was still holding. The bitter flavor matched how he was feeling. The matron plunked his new bottle down where he'd been sitting, and he reached for it without thinking, wincing as his back spasmed in protest. He grimaced. Wheelchairs went in reverse for a reason.
Less than two minutes left until takeoff. He leaned forward, willing himself into the cockpit of that ship with everything he had. He should have been there. Would have been there, if it hadn't been for a random accident. There was something ironic about being taken down by a mini coupe after surviving dozens of missions into space unscathed. He was one of the most experienced space pilots in the world. He'd fought hard to win his berth on that mission.
All gone, now. A driver lost control of his car. A little kid was crossing the street about six steps ahead of her mom. Dan didn’t even think - he just reacted. He rushed out into the crosswalk, body-checking the child clear of danger. She’d been fine. A few bumps and scrapes, but nothing the average six-year-old couldn’t recover from. Dan had taken the impact dead on and been hurled twenty feet through the air. He didn’t remember much of that, and was grateful for it. The doctors said he’d been lucky to survive at all.
The man who’d smashed into Dan wasn't going to have his license back for a while, but that didn't help heal his badly fractured spine. NASA's policy toward an injury as severe as his had no leeway. As far as they were concerned, he was grounded for good. So he'd taken the early retirement with full benefits and disability that the Air Force had offered. A good deal, but as a consolation prize it sucked. He had some buddies in Panama who told him that income would let him live like a king down there.
If only he could find some reason to live at all.
Fifty seconds left on the countdown. The numbers ticked away on the corner of the TV screen.
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With thirty eight seconds left, Dan's phone rang. The sound startled him, but out of habit he answered it, not taking his eyes off the TV as he did.
“Dan Wynn here.”
He watched two more seconds tick away on the countdown before a distorted voice said “Dan! Was hoping to catch you. How're you holding up?”
“Who is this?” Dan asked. He didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“It's John,” the voice replied, after a short delay.
“John, you have any idea what you're calling in the middle of?”
Another brief delay, and then John said “I'm watching it too, Dan. Why do you think I called you now?” Dan could almost hear his friend's smile over the phone line.
“I think you're interrupting,” he said, eyes narrowing. The last thing he needed right now was a pity call. Even from an old friend.
Another pregnant pause. “Dan, I'm calling to offer you a vacation, and maybe a job if you want it. I need people I can trust, and you're top of the list.”
“I'm flattered, but–” Dan broke off in mid-sentence as the Ares rocket launched, huge plumes of fire obscuring it from view for a moment before sending it skyward. As it lifted into the sky, all his hopes and wishes vanished with it.
Being a pilot had been his life. Flying things into space had been everything he’d ever dreamed, and more. Now it was gone, all of it. He was a grounded astronaut, lost without anything left in his life that he valued. He couldn’t even regret the accident, damn it. Because he’d seen the little girl he saved. She and her parents had visited him while he recovered at the hospital. They’d been crying. The girl gave him a get-well card. And Dan knew that if he had to make the same choice again, he’d do precisely the same thing anyway. Even if saving someone else had cost him everything.
“Dan. DAN.” John's voice was still nattering at him on the phone. “Listen to me.”
“What?” Dan said. His voice sounded hollow to his ears.
“Vacation, Dan. You need it. And I can use you, if you want to stay on, after.”
“I can't,” Dan replied. “Still got paperwork to finish my retirement package, and the docs want to see me daily for rehab.”
“I've already cleared your paperwork up. Had a general who owed me a favor. And we've got doctors on site who'll continue your rehab. But I need you here, Dan.”
The little delays in John's responses finally made their way through Dan's muddled thoughts. A couple of seconds of pause, each time he spoke. It was the same amount of delay. Not a conversational pause, then, but one caused by distance.
“Where are you, John?” he said, curiosity leaking into his voice. He took another sip from his bottle, trying to steady his thoughts.
“I'm on the far side of the moon, Dan. Want to come up for a visit?”
Two
Dan almost choked on his beer. He'd been expecting...well, something. With John, it was always something. The man was into everything, and had business interests involved across just about every sector of industry Dan could name. But that was one answer he hadn’t anticipated. What the hell was John doing on the moon? Dan was so startled that he almost missed the part about John asking him to join him there. In space. He blinked, his mouth suddenly dry. Another sip from his beer solved that and gave him a moment to focus his thoughts again. Was this life’s way of giving him a second chance?
“Hell yes, I’ll join you,” Dan said at last.
Another short pause, then John spoke again. “Put the drink down and go outside. A car will be waiting for you there. The driver will take you to my launchpad. That is, if you are still interested in going back into space?”
Dan stared a moment at the TV again, where the camera was still following the plume of fire burning its way into the sky. For the first time all day, he could look at the ship without feeling like he was being stabbed through the heart. He still felt a pang watching the ship lift off into the evening sky, but it wasn’t accompanied by the same sense of utter hopelessness he’d felt just moments ago.
“I'm on my way,” Dan said.
He turned off his phone, slapped enough bills on the table to pay for his beers plus a healthy tip for the scowling waitress, and rolled out toward the door. Halfway there he stopped. He turned the chair around and went back over to the bar, rolling up next to the man he’d yelled at a few minutes before. The big guy looked down at him like he was expecting a second round of snark, but Dan held up both his hands in a peaceful gesture.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Dan said. “For being an asshole. It’s been a rough few weeks, but that doesn’t excuse it.”
“No problem, man,” the guy - Larry, his name had been - replied. “Keep it real.”
Dan nodded to him and turned to leave again. He felt lighter for having made the apology. It wasn’t like him to berate someone like that, and it hadn’t just been the beer talking, either. He knew John well enough to know that whatever he was calling Dan into space for, it was going to be interesting. He needed to be himself, for this. He needed to find himself again. The apology felt like a good first step.
Dan reached the door and went out into the cool evening air. John was as good as his word. A young driver was already waiting out front, standing outside a large black SUV hybrid with a wheelchair lift built into the side. He expertly hooked Dan's chair up to the device, chatting amiably as he worked.
“The boss was dead on right about you,” he said.
“Oh?” Dan replied.
“Yup. Called me, said you'd be out the door within five minutes. Took you three minutes thirty.”
“Well. John always did know what buttons to push on people.”
“He's good that way. I'm Andy. You're Dan Wynn, the astronaut?”
The simple question rocked Dan. “I suppose...I am. Again.”
The driver hooked straps from the vehicle to his chair to hold it in place. A few deft movements, and he was done. Dan was impressed; it usually took the taxi drivers a lot longer to get him situated. This guy knew what he was doing. Dan relaxed some. Cars still made him nervous, especially when he wasn’t the one driving them, but he felt like he could trust this driver. Andy tugged the straps a little, checked to make sure they were locked tight, and then slammed the door shut.
Dan caught a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror and winced. His hair had grown out a lot in the six months since his injury. He hadn't bothered to keep it in a military trim, and now it was a dark, untidy mess. He ran his fingers through it, trying to restore some semblance of order without much success. He sighed and gave up. Short hair was so much easier to manage. Maybe John had a barber out there.
“Boss said to give you these,” Andy said as he hopped back into the driver's seat. He passed back a bottle of cold Gatorade and a travel packet of extra-strength Tylenol.
“Thought of everything, didn't the smug...” Dan muttered.
John knew him too well. But he took the drink and the meds. The last thing he needed was to be hung over for a launch. John’s little present would help. Dan patted the leg bag hidden in his sweatpants and grimaced. His urine drained there. The docs had said he had enough bladder control to do without one now, and they had been pushing him to ditch the bag for days. But he'd resisted. So much trouble to get into a bathroom, then get up to use it. Too much trouble for someone who’d already given up on living. It was so much easier to just use the bag and Texas catheter. Now he felt embarrassed about the little condom-shaped device and the tube that ran into the hidden bag. He'd been drinking a lot tonight, and his bag was already mostly full.
“Andy, I've got a problem,” he said.
“Yeah?”
He winced. This wasn't fun to explain to a stranger. “I need to change out my leg bag. Old one is just about full of processed beer piss. I've got a spare with me, but you got something for the old one?”
Andy passed back a plastic bag. “Cap it, stick it in there and tie it off. Then rest, why don't you? We've got a longish drive ahea
d.”
Dan unhooked the bag and swapped in the new one, capped the old bag, and then placed it into the fresh plastic bag as the driver had suggested. He wasn't sure what to do with the tied-off bag and its contents, so he plopped it onto the floor. It wasn't going to make a mess now, anyway. Dan decided that it was well past time to get over himself and get rid of the leg bag crutch. He popped the Tylenol and leaned back as much as his wheelchair would allow. He gulped down some of the sports drink.
Lulled by the gentle rumble of the vehicle, he fell into the first nightmare free sleep he'd had in weeks.
Three
John Caraway sat at his desk, looking out over one of the most splendid vistas ever seen by human eyes. The wall screen in front of him wasn't a real window, of course. His office was buried under a thick layer of lunar rock. The entire complex was. Safer that way. The rock served to block both solar radiation and peeping eyes.
But he loved the view, so whenever he wasn't using the screen for something else, he had it set to a live camera on the surface. Right now the sun was dawning over the horizon on the moonscape. It would creep along like that for days, slowly shifting the shadows over the cratered rock. One lunar day/night cycle was about twenty eight Earth days long, so each dawn was something he treasured. Every time he thought he had memorized those patterns, they seemed to surprise him with something new. The two weeks when this part of the moon was turned away from the sun felt interminable, sometimes.
But during the lunar day, he enjoyed sitting there watching the slow creep of light overcome the darkness. He'd hung his wife's picture on the wall to one side of his desk so that they could share the view. He knew Satori would have loved it as much as he did.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 1