by Greg Cox
Huh? Shannon couldn’t believe her ears. She felt like one of those slasher movie victims who suddenly discovers that a threatening call is coming from inside their own house. “Are you serious?” she asked the pen.
“Serious as an ozone alert,” the other woman quipped. “Don’t be long.”
Putting away the pen, which had ceased vibrating once Shannon had answered Helen’s insistent page, the young aeronautics engineer took a second to assimilate what she’d just heard. S-4? What in the world was Helen doing there?
At least Shannon didn’t have far to go. A high-speed underground monorail connected this part of Area 51 with the facility code-named S-4, a concealed hangar and launch pad built into a spiny mountain ridge overlooking a dry lake bed known as Papoose Lake. On the surface, it was thirty-minute trip by Jeep, but the monorail got her there in less than ten.
The guards posted at the entrance to S-4 knew Shannon by sight, but still asked to see her ID before letting her proceed. “Just can’t stay away, huh?” asked one of the guards, Sergeant Steven Muckerheide, who had been working security at the base for years.
“Guess not,” she replied as lightly as she could manage. It dawned on her that, by coincidence, Muck had been on duty the first time Helen broke in to Area 51, back in 1986. Then the mystifying stranger had stolen a “phaser” and a “tricorder” (as Shannon had later learned they were called). Shannon couldn’t imagine what Helen was after now.
After passing the usual fingerprint and retina scans, Shannon took an empty elevator cage up to Launch Control. Despite her mounting anxiety about this unscheduled (and highly illegal) rendezvous, she couldn’t help but admire once more the underground hangar’s most impressive occupant.
Gleaming brightly, the DY-100 rested upright upon the reinforced concrete launch pad. Over four hundred feet high, the completed prototype resembled a missile with mumps, the spacious hibernation compartments bulging outward beneath the sleeper ship’s bullet-shaped prow. Four fusion-powered deuterium boosters were strapped onto the vessel’s lower fuselage, ready to help the DY-100 achieve escape velocity as soon the first flight test was approved. Its heat-resistant, blue ceramic finish gave the prototype an appropriately shiny, right-out-of-the-box lust er.
The DY-100 was more than state-of-the-art, it was a sneak preview of a brand-new era Shannon hoped to be a part of. Its revolutionary “impulse” engine, based on alien technology observed at Roswell, with an uncredited assist from whomever Helen Swanson was working for, was theoretically capable of achieving velocities thrillingly close to the speed of light. Built-in hibernation niches, improving upon Walter Nichols’s original cryosatellite designs, promised to hold some eighty-five passengers in suspended animation while the fully automated computer system (Jackson Roykirk’s pride and joy) piloted the sleeper ship to unknown worlds light-years from Earth.
The sight still took Shannon’s breath away. Too bad this whole project is still so hush-hush, she thought. She wanted to show the magnificent starship off to the entire world. Maybe someday, once all the secrecy is lifted, billions of television viewers will watch a DY-100 take off for the stars.
The elevator lurched to a halt and Shannon exited the cage, right outside a door labeled: S-4. LAUNCH CONTROL. Another guard should have been standing watch over the entrance, so she was surprised to find the door unattended. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought, as she slid her own key card into the lock and entered today’s password into the electronic keypad. “Hello?” she asked uneasily, as the door slid open.
It was past eleven on a Friday night. With the earliest lift-off date still days away, Launch Control should have been completely deserted. And, indeed, rows of unoccupied computer control stations looked out on the launch site through a gallery window made of six-inch-thick transparent aluminum, strong enough to withstand even the tremendous heat and force of a blast-off. The consoles were all switched off, giving the launch gallery a sepulchral feel, lacking its usual flashing lights and humming circuitry.
But the control room was not entirely empty. Helen Swanson, wearing (of all things!) an orange NASA flight suit, lounged in one of the rolling bucket seats used by the launch technicians, her booted feet resting atop an inactive keyboard. Next to her, in the adjacent seat, a uniformed guard snored contentedly, his head slumped onto the console in front of him. An inane grin was plastered on his face, and a tiny river of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t worry about him,” Helen assured her, nodding at the oblivious sentry. His gun, Shannon noted, was resting on another console, safely out of arm’s reach. “Trust me, he’s having very pleasant dreams right now.”
Tell me about it, Shannon thought, having been on the receiving end of one of Helen’s weirdo tranquilizer beams back in ’86; she had never slept quite so well in her life. “What’s this all about, Helen?” she whispered urgently. “What are you doing here?”
She didn’t even bother asking Helen how she had managed to sneak into S-4, despite all of Area 51’s plentiful security. The enigmatic older woman (whose honey-blond tresses, Shannon suspected, held a great deal of dye) had long ago proven that she could more or less come and go as she pleased; even still, for Shannon’s peace of mind, if nothing else, they had usually arranged to meet in Vegas, far from the vigilant eyes and ears of the base’s military guardians.
Helen grimaced, as if reluctant to divulge the purpose of her visit. “I have a very big favor to ask of you,” she began, flinching in anticipation. “I need the DY-100. Tonight.”
What? The shocks just kept on coming. “You have to be joking.” Shannon stared at Helen’s orange NASA flight suit, hoping it was all part of some twisted practical joke. “You want the ship?”
“Tonight,” Helen echoed. She got up out of her chair and walked over toward Shannon, who saw that the self-proclaimed blond “go-between” was carrying a translucent green paperweight, which she fidgeted with nervously as she spoke. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask—”
“No!” Shannon blurted, venting her sudden anger and confusion. “It’s more than a lot, it’s insane.” Her upset voice crept up an octave. “We’re talking about a one-of-a-kind, multi-billion-dollar spaceship, the result of decades of ultra-top-secret research and experimentation. I can’t just loan it out like the keys to my old Subaru!”
“Actually, it wouldn’t really be a loan,” Helen admitted sheepishly. “Once it leaves, it ain’t coming back.” Overcoming her apparent embarrassment, she addressed Shannon in all seriousness. “Listen to me. I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t a matter of extreme importance. I can’t explain it all to you now, but, believe me, the fate of the entire planet, of every living thing, depends on you helping me steal the DY-100 tonight.”
Am I dreaming this? Shannon wondered. The whole thing felt like some sort of crazy nightmare. “Believe you? I don’t even know who you are!” She threw up her hands in a paroxysm of emotion. “What do you need me for anyway? Why don’t you just whisk the ship away the same way you got in here?”
“I wish!” Helen said, ignoring the bitterness in the younger woman’s tone. She peered through the see-through aluminum at the massive spacecraft on the launch pad. “Too much mass, plus way too much high-tech electronic surveillance around here.” She shook her head. “I was pushing my luck just to, er, ‘whisk’ in here tonight.”
Helen gave Shannon a sympathetic look, seemingly full of compassion and concern. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to swipe the ship without at least talking to you.”
“Oh yeah?” Shannon shot back, not buying the other woman’s show of consideration. Dire suspicions rushed into her mind. “How do I know this wasn’t your plan all along? That you haven’t been ‘playing’ me all these years?”
She snuck a peek at the narcotized guard’s revolver, lying not too far away. If she made a sudden grab for it, she might be able to catch Helen unawares. Maybe it’s finally time to come clean with the authorities, she thought. The FBI might be very i
nterested to find out Helen’s connection to the project.
Helen fiddled with her paperweight, a crystalline green pyramid, as her eyes entreated Shannon. “I sincerely hoped it would never come to this,” she divulged. “And it’s not like I’ll be completely snatching away all of your hard work and progress. You’ll still have all the blueprints and diagrams and such. You can build a new sleeper ship. Heck, you can construct a whole fleet of them if you like.” She spoke softly and distinctly, as if getting through to Shannon at this critical moment were all-important. “But that ship out there is needed elsewhere, for a mission that could save this entire planet from a disaster of global proportions.”
Windows 95? Shannon thought irrationally. Despite the utter insanity of the very notion, she found her initial anger and skepticism melting away, succumbing, perhaps, to the overwhelming sincerity—and the fear—she sensed in the other woman. It occurred to her, against her better judgment, not to mention every last shred of her common sense, that there would have been no DY-100 without all the priceless scientific hints Helen Swanson had passed on to her over the years. Wasn’t I just thinking the very same thing, back at the party in the conference room?
“I don’t know, Helen,” she murmured, wavering.
“Roberta,” the blond woman said. “My name is Roberta Lincoln.” She shrugged the shoulders of her orange flight suit, as if the revelation was no big deal. “I can’t expect you to trust me this far, not unless I trust you, too.”
Oddly moved by this disclosure, Shannon gave an only slightly hysterical laugh. “What the hell? I’ve been a double agent for years now. Why not a starship rustler, too?” She wiped a spontaneous tear from the corner of her eye. “What do you need me to do?”
Helen—no, Roberta—grinned, and Shannon felt the genuine relief radiating from the other woman, who gestured at the expensive hardware and empty seats all around them. “Congratulations, you’re Launch Control.”
If Shannon still had her wine, she would have done a spit take into her glass. “Come again?” She wiped a bang of bright red hair from her face. “Now you’re really talking crazy. I mean, look at all these stations. You need a whole team to coordinate a launch. One person can’t do it alone!”
“You can with the right equipment,” Roberta said, giving Shannon a mischievous wink. She laid her crystal pyramid on top of the nearest computer console. “Get hopping.”
At first Shannon thought Roberta was addressing her, then she realized the older woman was talking to her paperweight. To her amazement, the miniature pyramid, which was no bigger than a Rubik’s Cube, suddenly emitted a cool emerald glow. A second later, all the consoles in the control room came alive at once, their multicolored switches and displays lighting up like Christmas decorations. The hum of two dozen computerized work stations suddenly revving for action was even enough to briefly rouse the tranquilized guard. “Sssh!” he admonished the inconsiderate hardware, managing, if only for a moment, to lift his head from the saliva-covered console. “Tryin’ to get some shut-eye . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Roberta instructed him, gently pushing his head down. “Go back to sleep.”
The glowing crystal beeped. “Override protocols engaged,” the pyramid announced in an impudent tone. “All relevant programs assimilated.”
Apparently, that was just what Roberta wanted to hear. “Resistance is futile,” she said with a smirk, as though enjoying a private joke. “Anyway,” she informed Shannon, giving the crystal pyramid an affectionate pat. “All of your launch systems are now slaved into this little guy. Just tell him what to do, and trust him to keep an eye on everything else.” She paused, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then snapped her fingers as one more thought occurred to her. “And, oh yeah, don’t be annoyed if he gets a bit snippy with you. Artificial intelligences always seem to come with a touch of attitude.”
While Shannon struggled to lift her metaphorical jaw from the floor, Roberta went on to explain the rest of her plan. “Got that?” she asked afterward.
“I think so,” Shannon said uncertainly. She’d never aided and abetted a starship heist before. Her shell-shocked gaze drifted over Roberta’s bright orange NASA attire. A rectangular plastic name badge identified the blond woman, surreally, as SALLY RIDE. “Is that authentic?” Shannon asked absently. Not that it really mattered . . .
“Nope,” Roberta admitted. “Left over from Halloween several years back.” She tugged at the insulated orange fabric over her hips. “Thank goodness I can still fit into this thing.”
Alone with the sleeping sentry, Shannon watched tensely from the launch gallery as a tiny orange figure ascended to the capsule at the top of the DY-100. A few minutes later, the intercom crackled to life. “All right, I’m all strapped in,” Roberta’s voice came over the speaker. “Let’s get the show on the road.”
Shannon swallowed hard. “Okay,” she said into the launch supervisor’s microphone. Too stressed-out to sit down, she paced back and forth in front of the supervisor’s station. “The ship was designed to be able to take off with the entire crew, including the pilot, tucked away in suspended animation, so everything is totally automated. In theory, you shouldn’t have to do anything at all, just enjoy the ride.”
She wasn’t sure if she was explaining this for Roberta’s benefit or her own. Probably the latter, she admitted.
Feeling faintly ridiculous, she addressed the tiny green pyramid. “Initiate pre-launch procedures.”
“Acknowledged,” the pyramid replied promptly. Shannon heard the whir of specialized equipment responding to her command. Maybe we can actually pull this off, she thought, crossing her fingers. Fortunately, the boosters employed nuclear fusion technology so there was no long fueling procedure; the boosters were already filled with an adequate supply of nonvolatile deuterium.
Down below, on the other side of the impervious window, metal arms retracted from the DY-100, which remained upright due to the stabilizing weight of the booster rockets. “Initiating pre-burn sequence,” the pyramid informed her. “One minute to lift-off.”
Shannon couldn’t believe how fast this streamlined countdown was going; the blinky little pyramid was way too efficient as far as her nerves were concerned. She couldn’t help remembering that this was, after all, the first launch of an untried, experimental spacecraft—being supervised by a tiny talking piece of crystal! The faces of Gus Grissom, Christa McAuliffe, and the other tragic martyrs of the space program flashed through her mind; she didn’t want Roberta to join that distinguished pantheon.
“Attention: Launch Control!” An irate voice blared over the PA system. “Cease unauthorized operations immediately. That’s an order!”
Shannon groaned, startled but not too surprised by the warning. There was probably no way they could get this close to a lift-off without someone noticing what was going on at S-4. She had a sneaking suspicion that she was hearing, in the stentorian intonations of that cease-and-desist order, the sound of her NASA ambitions going down the tubes.
No turning back now, she thought.
“Attention: This is Dreamland High Command.” Shannon visualized the apoplectic face of General Wright, beet-red with fury. “You are committing an act of high treason. Stand down at once!”
“Kill the sound,” she ordered the pyramid, and the incensed voice fell silent.
Someone was pounding heavily on the door to the control room, which Roberta had thoughtfully welded shut before heading down to the launch pad. “Open up!” Muck shouted, as rifle butts slammed against the reinforced steel door. Shannon kept her gaze glued on the awakening spacecraft below. Plumes of white-hot steam jetted from the tails of the booster rockets. Shannon figured the threat of imminent immolation would keep the base’s security forces out of the hangar until the blast-off was terminated, one way or another.
“Open the hangar doors,” she instructed.
“Already in process,” the pyramid responded, with a bit of that attitude Roberta warned her a
bout.
High above their heads, camouflaged doors slid away, offering Shannon a glimpse of a starry Nevada sky. The automated launch procedures would take the DY-100 beyond Earth’s atmosphere before requiring further instructions from Roberta; she wondered where the enigmatic go-between was planning to take the ship next. Mars? Moscow? The Ferengi homeworld?
“Thirty seconds to lift-off.”
Without warning, the pen in her pocket started vibrating again. By now, though, Shannon was beyond surprises, so she simply plucked the pen, which Roberta had given her years ago, from her pocket and lifted it to her face. “Yes?”
“Thought I’d use our private line,” Roberta said via the pen, “in case anyone was listening in. I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate all your trust, not just tonight but for the last few years. If you ever want to do this stuff full-time, just give me a ring.”
I may need a new career after this, Shannon thought realistically. “Thanks, but let me think about that.” It was an interesting offer, but, deep down inside, she doubted that she really wanted to cope with this much suspense and tension on a regular basis. “Bon voyage,” she wished Roberta. “Give my regards to space.”
“Will do,” the other woman promised.
“Ten seconds to lift-off,” the pyramid announced. “Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”
Shannon counted along, like she was in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
“. . . six, five, four, three, two, one . . . Ignition!”
Despite Walter’s boasts, she could still hear the roar of the engines through the thick transparent aluminum. Before her awestruck eyes, the DY-100 lifted off its launch pad, ascending into the midnight sky atop an inverted geyser of flame and smoke. One way or another, she realized, her wide brown eyes tracking the rocket’s ascent until it flew out of sight, a new era of space exploration had begun.
She just wished she knew, really, who was behind the wheel.