by L. S. Wood
The Commander hoped his crew would be in a strong and operable condition to control the beast when that special time came. The time had come to switch on the reentry booster rockets manually they thought for their safe reentry into the earth’s atmosphere, and did not let the onboard computers do their designed job.
With the computers sitting idle, they were flying by the seats of their pants, a smart way to handle their attempt at making a safe landing back on Earth, the commander hoped anyway
“Fire the boosters.” The command was given by Commander Anderson as the booster rockets came to life thrusting the Twitchel from the outer most limits of the Ionospheres, and down into and through the atmosphere’s most outer skin.
Down through the broken up Ozone layer and into the unstable saturated neutron atmosphere surrounding the earth. Suddenly all hell broke loose with the Twitchel, with everything all happening at once. Commander Colonel Anderson had just switched the electrical power of the shuttles main power to the off position, as the Twitchel reentered the earth’s atmosphere and the craft began to shimmy and shake. They should have waited a few more seconds, and let the onboard computers do their designed jobs, but he did not wait long enough in not wanting to find out why the earth had no power, and become another statistic of the devil creature that lurked in and around the world’s atmosphere at the time.
The g-force exerted upon the crew inside the Twitchel became intolerable for the crew as they tumbled once, then twice and then a third time, twisting in their craft in the air over the earth.
All happy thoughts about reuniting with their loved ones, friends, and families suddenly vanished, turning happy thoughts to timid despair instantly. All knew the worst was yet to come in their frantic situation, as bodies and minds lay hard pressed in their seats, their flab and muscles beneath their outer skin stretched. Everyone’s flesh trying hard to dislodge itself from the skeletal frames so lightly attached, and slip away from them disintegrating within their own flight suits.
Everyone aboard the Twitchel was about to pass out from the extreme G-force being exerted upon the men, and Ann in their troubled moment of tumbling. Living in outer space for over a year long without the benefit of gravity had weakened them all extensively.
Colonel Anderson reached forward with all of the built up might he had left in his weakening body and hit the switch to the main computers back on. It was a long shot. A shot in the dark, but the only hope they had for the moment, and it worked.
Miraculously the main computer came instantly back to life sensing the problem immediately, and fired off two recovery retro rockets, enabling the Twitchel to place herself back into a new thirty-degree controlled pitched descending dive, downwards towards the landing site many miles below.
Colonel Anderson placed his two hands firmly onto the main controls and flew along with the autopilot being controlled by the computer to get the feel of flying the shuttle once again as his head spun round, and round in circles from being spun like a top in his seat.
The computer opened the forward shields covering the shuttles windshield, and slid them back out of the way along the two hand rods connected to the slides along the top panel of the controls.
The Florida panhandle first came into view as they made their turn towards their landing site.
The crew hollered out in joyous revelation. The crew all sickened from their horrendous experience a short few minuets’ or hours past. They did not care for they were with great joy in their hearts for not crashing. They tried their radios to contact the Kennedy command center without any response from them.
Oh, there was a response all right! The thing in the atmosphere, the neutralizing creature made up of massive neutrons followed the radio signaling beacons radio waves up from the ground or wherever it suddenly came from out of nowhere to the spacecraft, engulfing the Twitchel in a bright orange sheen of green, orange and dark brown making everything inside the Twitchel black.
The eye in the sky aboard the space station lost visual contact with the Twitchel behind a cloud for a couple of split seconds they thought as the neutron creature living in the earth’s atmosphere engulfed the Twitchel.
It instantly absorbed every positively charged electron out of all the active electrolytes from the hearts of its main control battery banks and wind generating electrical banks. It rendered the electrical controls aboard the Twitchel useless.
The Twitchel was a dead bird gliding through the sky over the Earth without any electronics onboard to help her fly, except for her manually operable abilities to control her flight hydraulically, and a wind operated pressurized speed control affixed to her control panel as an indicator.
The Twitchel’s navigator, Lieutenant Ann Mitchell, tried in vain to arouse someone on the ground who might hear her desperate calls for help. She was hoping someone from the landing site might hear her, but to no avail. All she could do now was to hope someone had heard their plight in the MAYDAY message sent before they lost their power. They were about to land their bird hard, and needed help if by chance they crash landed. Not knowingly so, the many many repeated messages she tried to broadcast during their landing fell upon deaf ears.
Colonel Anderson tried switching from the main controlled power banks to the backup auxiliary power systems soon as the main system went dead, but the auxiliary system was as dead and drained as the main power packs were. He had suspected it would be right from the beginning.
They definitely did not have any electronics on board the Twitchel to fly her on any longer. It would now be up to the crewmembers to bring their ailing craft down to a safe landing manually, if it were at all possible to do so.
Colonel Anderson had been holding firm the controls of the Twitchel with both his hands this time, should a sudden loss in power were to happen again, and it did.
He hollered out to his crewmembers. “Harry, you, Bill, and Dave get down in the damn aft hold and forward wheel well hold compartments. Start cranking the hell out those damned landing gears. Get them down right now. Ann! You stand by the hatch and let me know when they are down there and in position to act. We have only but one shot at this landing so the damn landing gears had better be working for us or we are doomed to end up out in the drink and damn well drown.”
Colonel Anderson didn’t want to set the landing gear down to early, not until the final minute, or seconds prior landing in fear the drag of air exerted upon the aircraft caused by the landing gear might act more like air brakes and could slow them down too drastically slow and make them fall short of the intended runway.
It seemed like an hour had slowly passed by to the men in the hole of the Twitchel when the order from Commander Anderson came down to crank down hard on the landing gears. “Lower the landing gears, NOW!” Ann yelled out to the men down below in the Twitchel’s lower fuselage. “Lower the gears NOW, guys.” The three men in the Twitchel’s belly positioned themselves one each at a set of landing gear wheel cranks and began cranking their hearts out on the three sets of landing gear gearboxes.
The three crewmembers had never worked this hard ever, never in their entire lives together as team members, it seemed. Their weakened bodies produced extreme pain in them as they cranked and cranked, and cranked until they felt such pain in their arms they did not want to crank another turn on the shaft they were turning, but they did.
The three men knew if the landing gears and wheels were not all the way down, and locked into position when it came time to land the Twitchel, they would be the ones at fault, the ones who blew the mission in returning safely back home to Earth.
Therefore, they continued to crank with cramped hands and arms until they could crank no more, and then cranked some more and some more.
Slowly the landing gears emerged from out the underbelly beneath the Twitchel, until all the landing gear looked fully extended downward and all three locked into their landing positions.
“Are they down yet, Ann?” Colonial Anderson was getting jittery for he was having a hard time keeping the big bird aloft and flying level in their rapid descending approach toward the long runway below.
It was taking more his strength and effort than he had ever thought possible or imagined it would take to fly this big hunk, this hulk of steel in the air. “Damn it guy’s. I need those wheels down now! She is coming in real fast men, too damn fast. Strap yourselves in men.
Steve, give me some flaps right now, but slowly.” The Twitchel fought Colonel Anderson hard when he had her winged flaps extended out by Steve. The flaps slid down into position holding back a solid mass in air beneath her belly from her long sweeping wings accumulating a cushion in mixed air below her, accompanying the frictional drag in air extended out from the landing gear producing a slower air speed for his craft.
“Steve, get ready to help me with these damn brakes. I don’t think I can handle them all by myself. I don’t have enough strength left. I just do not have it in me anymore.
Lieutenant Mitchell, get ready to deplore the drag chute cable. I think we should give ourselves a quick silent prayer people. We need all the damn help we can muster up right now. What do you think people? Doesn’t that old runway look beautiful?”
“I can’t ever remember being this happy, to have ever seen a runway that looked this beautiful before, Colonel.” “We are not home safe yet Steve! There is a whole hell of a lot of ocean out ahead us there should we miss this damn landing.
I do not see any type of emergency vessels lining the runway to help us if we miss this landing.
You aren’t scared, are you, Major?”
“Yes, your damn right tooting I am scared, Colonel! I am half scared to death, and if we make it back home alive in one piece, I am never going to step another foot in any kind of flying machine never ever again! I have had it with all these flying gigs. I do not know about the rest of you people, but I saw my whole life flash away right in front of me up there.
It was kind of like a rapid slow motion picture clip, frame by frame of my whole life, just like a movie of my life up there on that damn reentry. As far as I am concerned, and I am sure, I am not all alone in this. No more missions for this lucky kid, and I do feel lucky, a little bit anyway!”
“Brace your selves gentleman, and you too Ann! Here she comes! She is coming up quickly people. A little more flaps, Steve, a little more flaps. Give all the flaps. Give all the flaps right now Steve! It’s going to be a hard one!”
Colonel Anderson pulled back as hard and as firmly he could on the flight control gears in his hands with all the strength he could muster up with his cold frigid hands and weakened arms to set the Twitchel down on the runway.
He was trying to make it as soft a landing he possibly could without the help of the onboard computers. The Twitchel came in soft as could be without any calamity in her landing at all.
Ok, Steve, give her some soft braking with me. Lieutenant Mitchell, let go of the braking drag chutes, Lieutenant. A little more brake tension Steve, a little more. Damn it guys, we sure are good, aren’t we? Home, sweet home, good old terra-firma”, Colonel Anderson yelled out screaming at the top of his voice, as they joyfully rolled down the runway.
The Twitchel came to a slow rolling stop, out on the tarmac. Close to the far end of the longest Kennedy runway. Soon as they stopped, Ann broke down and cried uncontrollably.
She began her blubbering while still sitting in her station, she was so damn relieved and happy to be back home again on earth.
She got the rest of the crew joyfully crying right along with her as well, with their eyes filling up with happy joyful tears of bliss running down everyone’s cheeks.
Bill jumped down to the ground from the last rung on the dropped down emergency-chained escape ladder, and kissed the good old terra-firma tarmac of the paved runway, and surface of good old Mother Earth beneath his feet.
He yelled out with joy in his heart. “I am not ever going to leave you ever again baby! I am not ever go to leave you again!”
He yelled out at the top of his lungs joyfully, so loud everyone for miles around, if there were anyone, could have heard him loud and clear proclaim to the world he would never fly again, no matter what the circumstance might be, for he was done with it for good.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Did They or Didn’t They
The crew aboard the space station wouldn’t know for several days if their friends aboard the Twitchel ever made it back home alive, or not?
They watched from above as the Twitchel broke through the earth’s atmosphere, and began to tumble out of control. Then they saw their friends regain control over their Starship, just prior the speedy orbit the space station was in that took them out of range of visual contact out over the ocean.
None of the two crafts tried talking to one another after the Twitchel broke radio contact going through the dead zone of the atmosphere to see if everything was going to be all right, for if they had the neutron mass would have struck all that much sooner seeking out the source of the radio signal.
Every crewmember aboard the space station were too busy, being half scared to death for themselves, and for the safety of their friends descending back towards the Earth, not wanting to bother them in this critical time they were going through. They knew their friends were in serious trouble for that split second, and all they could do was sit back, watch, pray, and wait holding their breaths until the Twitchel righted herself again in flight.
The peninsula of Florida’s east side coast faded quickly out of sight, as did their valued view of the returning Twitchel as a thick foggy cloudbank aloft came rolling in over the land from the ocean, drifting westward. It would truly be a miracle, if anyone onboard the space shuttle could have survived the wicked tumbling act the Twitchel looked like it had gone through, never mind the integrity or condition of the craft itself after such an encounter. For the next couple of days, the space center at Cape Canaveral remained overcast.
The sky above the cape stayed covered by a low white misty cloudbank that prevented anyone from above viewing anything below, every time the space station passed overhead of the Florida compound. The entire space station crew had their own doubts about their friend’s fate of having made it back home safely, never mind alive.
The space station crew searched the path of ground the Twitchel would have had to have flown over to see if they might spot a crater made by the Shuttle in the ground, had it fallen out of the sky short of its intended target, like so many other aircraft seemed to have done when the big blast hit.
Like new expectant fathers, sisters and anxious grandparents were waiting on word of their first newborn son, daughter, or grandchild to arrive, who anxiously walk back and forth in a hospitals corridors or waiting room
The crew aboard the space station anxiously walked with magnetic shoes, floated around, or crawled around back and forth. All worried sick at different intervals of the day and night. Back and forth and then back and forth inside their confined cubicles and stations inside the space station.
Each nervously waiting for the cloud bank covering the cape to lift, so they might at least catch a simple glimpse of something down there to see if their dear friends had made it back home alive and safe in one piece, or not.
Not one aboard expected down deep in their caring hearts to see what they witnessed below, for they were all so sure they’re friends aboard the Twitchel were all dead after seeing the horrible tumbling act they had all gone through.
It was early morning on the fourth day after the Twitchel departure the space station when the space laboratory station passed directly overhead of the safely landed Twitchel. It still looked very much dark over the cape and rather misty down there in the early dawn of day. Daylight was just barely breaking out over Florida.
The shuttle looked to have landed to the one using telescope. It
looked to be on the ground at the far end of the runway, but in total disarray according to the view presented through the early morning mist. It looked to him like the craft had crashed along the runway, with many parts scattered out in the front of it, as well as parts of it in the back of the craft.
Another couple long tedious nerve-racking hours passed before the crew of the space station would know for sure if the craft had landed safely, or had crashed the way it looked to the operator of the telescope.
His heart sank swiftly to his feet in sudden heartfelt sadness filled with depression, along with several other sad looking faces among the laboratory’s crewmembers. They hated in having to wait another few long tense hours before viewing the Twitchel waiting for their next pass over the Florida landing sight. On the very-next pass over the sight, the Sun of a most-perfect day, was shining brightly down on the Twitchel below.
For the first time the crew aboard the space station looked down to a most beautiful sight, with an American flag spread out in front the Twitchel, and a huge Russian flag spread out to the rear behind the craft.
There was a message painted on the runway behind the Russian flag in big bold white letters. All back home. Everyone safe in good health, thank you! Thank you comrades very much. Hope to see you soon. Will send messages to all your families everything is ok with all.
It was the thank you very much and “hope to see you all soon in the message painted on the runway that caused not a dry eye in any of the cubicles where they were watching the monitors from, causing everyone aboard the space station to get all misty eyed, including Commander Ivan.
Instant jubilation range out in happy joy among the many laboratory crewmembers, for they were all incredibly happy, and somewhat jealous, that their comrade American friends had all made it back home to Earth safe.